


When the Wait is Over

by lettersfromnowhere



Series: The Waiting Game [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, The Waiting Game-verse, unrelated oneshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25638460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: Unrelated, mostly-fluffy oneshots set in the canon-divergent world of "The Waiting Game".
Relationships: Aang/Hina Oyama (The Waiting Game), Aang/Original Female Character, Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Waiting Game [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867837
Comments: 209
Kudos: 109





	1. 104 AG: Letters

**Author's Note:**

> So. Yeah. I know I need to stop thinking about TWG eventually, but I have three (3) friends begging me to write Haang fluff, and there's much Zutara fluff still to be had in this 'verse, and I have a MILLION kid headcanons, so...
> 
> This is happening. This won't be anywhere near linear and the continuity will probably be a mess, but here ya go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months after Katara and Zuko's wedding, the Gaang reunites in Ba Sing Se; Aang needs some advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pure self-indulgent Haang fluff. YOU'RE WELCOME, @antarcticasx.

To say the least, this was not how Zuko had imagined he'd be spending his afternoon. 

The final members of their group of six had scarcely arrived in Ba Sing Se for their reunion and run to greet each other at the Jasmine Dragon's entrance, to the annoyance of some customers and the delight of others, when Aang cornered Zuko. He looked anxious, jumpy in a way Zuko hadn't seen him in years, and he'd been wringing his hands from the moment he'd walked over. 

"Are you doing alright?" Zuko had asked, more than a little concerned. Evidently something was amiss, and if it had Aang _this_ nervous upon what should've been a joyful occasion, it was probably bad. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," he'd deflected, though he obviously wasn't. "I just had a question for you." 

"Um...go ahead?" Zuko wasn't quite sure how to approach this and he threw a glance over at his wife, who'd probably know better than he did. She was occupied in conversation with Suki, though, and he realized with a sinking heart that, when Suki set her newborn son in Katara's arms, there would be absolutely no hope of help from her. _You're the Fire Lord, Zuko,_ he chastised himself. _You can handle this on your own._

"How do you write a love letter?" 

Zuko had to blink a few times to clear his vision. "Um?" _that_ hadn't been what he was expecting. "Why do you ask?" 

"Because I want to write one?" Aang's shoulders slumped in what seemed to be embarrassment. "And I know you and Katara write them to each other, so you know how, and I...I don't." 

"Since when do you have someone to write a love letter _to?"_ Zuko asked, feeling rather out-of-the-loop. "I mean, congratulations! But..." 

"Uh, about that..." Aang scratched his neck, laughing uncomfortably. "I-" 

"Twinkletoes is writing a _love letter?"_ Toph cut in from across the room, loud enough to alert patrons and reunited friends alike of Aang's predicament. Zuko considered glaring at her until realizing that this was a rather flimsy plan. 

"Aww, did you finally tell her how you felt?" Katara turned towards them, still holding baby Yura, and beamed. "What'd she say?" 

Zuko's eyes widened. "You _knew_ about this?" he asked, feeling rather betrayed. 

"Zuko, I _told_ you about this!" she approached the group, Suki close behind. "Remember?" 

"Um..." 

"Wait, you mean he _didn't_ know?" Toph cackled. Now the group was clustered around Aang, blushing furiously. "How could you not have figured out that Twinkletoes here's in love with your own Spymistress?"

 _Wait, that sounds familiar,_ Zuko thought, realizing he wasn't as shocked by the revelation as he should've been. "Hina?" 

"Mm-hm." Katara nodded, noiselessly approaching Zuko and leaning into him. "Surprised you forgot." 

"I didn't think it was that serious, okay?" Zuko attempted to defend himself, but no one looked convinced. "Anyway. You want to write...a love letter...to Hina..." _Agni, that's never not going to sound weird to me._ "It's been, what, six months since you've seen her? So why now?" 

"I've just been trying to work up the nerve," Aang said sheepishly, mercifully unbothered by the fact that all of his friends and most of the Jasmine Dragon's customers were aware of his feelings for the Spymistress of the Fire Nation. "She told me at the wedding that she wanted me to write to her, and I would've, but it's just...she's so smart and well-spoken, and I don't know how to write anything good enough for her." 

"It's not about that," Katara tried to reassure him, handing Yura back to Suki so she could place her hand on his shoulder. "If she feels the same way...she does, right?" 

"I mean, she kissed me, so..." 

"So _that's_ where you went off to during the wedding!" Toph crowed. "I _knew_ something was up!" 

"What was up, Toph?" Iroh stepped through the door from the kitchen to the dining area.

"Time for you to pay up," she said, grinning wickedly. "They _did_ run off tomake out during the wedding." 

Grudgingly, Iroh pulled a silver piece from the cash register and handed it to Toph. "Your intuition is truly astute, Miss Beifong," he said without a hint of animosity at having lost the bet. Katara met her husband's eyes and hid a giggle behind her hand (his heart _still_ fluttered at little things like that and he hoped it would never stop) at the sheer _Toph-ness_ of it all. _Of course they were betting on that,_ Zuko couldn't help but think, wrapping his arm around Katara's shoulders. "Now, what was this I heard about a love letter?" 

"Aang needs help figuring out what to write," Katara explained. 

"Oh, in that case, you've come to the right place!" Iroh approached and clapped Aang on the back; he coughed surreptitiously and tried (unsuccessfully) not to look even more flustered than he already did. "The love letter is an art at which I've had much practice, young Avatar. You must-" 

"Aang's writing a love letter?" Sokka appeared in the doorway bearing a few parcels that he and Suki hadn't unloaded yet. "Wait, back it up. Aang has a _girlfriend?_ When did _that_ happen _?"_

"She's not exactly my girlfriend," Aang muttered, staring at his feet. 

"The Spymistress of the Fire Nation, apparently," Suki informed him when he joined their group. 

"Hm, a lady of influence? I know just the thing for you," Sokka said, clearly enjoying this a little too much. "You've got to give her a breath of fresh air. Be a change! Break the monotony of the repression and formality that plague her days!" he paused for effect, met with several pairs of eyes - some incredulous, others merely skeptical. "Aang, buddy, you gotta start strong. Grab her attention. Break the mold!" 

"And what exactly do I have to do to 'break the mold'?" Aang asked, crossing his arms.

" _Puns!"_ Sokka cried. "Puns work on everyone! Find me a lady and I'll-" 

"Sokka, honey, that only ever worked on me," Suki interrupted, fondly rolling her eyes. "Aang, I doubt that Hina would actually appreciate that." 

"But _everyone_ appreciates puns!" 

"No, Sokka, they really don't." Katara crossed her arms. "My advice is...just to be yourself, I guess. Don't let yourself get too bogged down with worrying about what she'll think. Write from the heart and you can't go wrong." 

"That's even worse advice than mine, and mine was _awful!"_ Sokka shook his head. "Really, sis, are you _trying_ to set him up for failure?" 

"Fine, then. If my advice is so terrible, ask my husband." Katara smirked as she elbowed Zuko's side and a look of sheer, unadulterated panic overtook his face. "He writes good love letters." 

"You said yourself that they were awful!" Zuko protested. 

"The ones you wrote when you were eighteen? Yeah, those sucked." She rose on her toes to kiss his cheek, her lips brushing the stubble he hadn't had a chance to shave while they'd been traveling to Ba Sing Se for the reunion. "But you got better." 

Even though he knew she was posturing - partly to get her brother's goat and partly in the hopes that she could compel Aang to do _something_ about his feelings - warmth pooled in his chest at her words. "Glad to know you think so," he told her. "But I don't think I'm the person to ask." _Right. Good. Deflect._ "Maybe ask Uncle?" 

"As I said, I have much experience in this area, so listen and learn." Iroh smirked and it was then that Zuko realized he should probably be very, _very_ afraid. "Start with a solid opener, but don't take the attention off of the real focus of the letter. 'My Dearest Hina' should work.'" None of them missed the way Aang's cheeks flushed at the mention of her name, least of all Iroh. "Then...hm. What would be a good first line?" he thought for a moment and nodded. "Ah, yes, one of my old standbys would do the trick: 'my dearest Hina, absence has only sweetened the divinity of your fragrance.' That-" 

"Agni above, Uncle, _no,"_ Zuko choked. "Hina would throw him out a window if he tried a line like that on her!" 

"She would," Aang agreed, a little green in the face. "Anyone? _Anyone?"_

"I have a better idea," Katara replied, her face lighting up with mischief. "For your opening line."

Aang visibly relaxed, certain he could trust Katara; this was his first mistake. "What is it?" 

"Start like this. 'Spymistress Oyama of the Fire Nation, Most Eminent and Esteemed Flower of My Heart, Jewel of My Very Being, I do love you ever so unbelievably much'-" 

"Hey, that's _my_ line!" Zuko looked every bit the petulant child, but he didn't care. Sokka, realizing what that meant, looked decidedly ill. "And she's probably heard us use it before, so she'll know we helped him, and..." he ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Aang, but it looks like you're on your own here." 

* * *

_Hey, Short Stuff,_

_I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write. I don't really have any writing experience, so I kind of don't know what to do. I tried asking my friends for advice but didn't go very well, so I'm just kind of winging it. Iroh told me to tell you that 'absence has only sweetened the divinity of your fragrance,' which has to be the weirdest sentence I've ever heard. And Katara wanted me to call you 'Most Eminent and Esteemed Flower of My Heart, Jewel of My Very Being,' which might be even weirder, and apparently is something she and Zuko call each other (I didn't ask and I'm not going to). Sokka said to make puns. Terrible advice, right? I figured you'd probably throw me out a window next time I saw you if I tried any of that, and I'm kind of hoping you'll let me kiss you again so I'm trying not to do anything that will inspire that kind of rage._

_Honestly, I'm not sure what to say, because I know it's not going to be as good as what you write me. But things have been good here in Ba Sing Se. It's great to be together again, and I met Sokka and Suki's baby. I'm never really sure what to do with babies, but he doesn't hate me, so that's nice. It's relaxing here, away from it all. But I miss you. That's not new. I've been busy, but I miss having a partner to work with. It was fun, us working together. And it gets lonely out there. I find myself wishing you could come with me a lot, even though I know that'll never happen. What about you? How's the Fire Nation? If you're allowed to talk about it, what's up with you?_

_Okay, I sealed this, but then I realized this wasn't exactly a love letter, which is usually fine because I figured that you'd hate that kind of thing. But I wanted to try to be romantic, if that's okay with you, so I went back and added some things:_

_-You have the prettiest eyes, you know that? I've never seen someone with eyes that shade of green._

_-You make me laugh, even though you don't think you're funny._

_-You can read people like books._

_-You are very small, and because of this, you fit under my chin._

_-For whatever reason, you decided to like me, and I'm really glad you did._

_This is short, and I'm sorry, but like I said, I'm kind of panicking, and I just have to get something written down before I psych myself out and can't do it. Write back soon and come see me sooner?_

_Yours,_

_Aang_

* * *

_Little Avatar (finally),_

_I was beginning to think you were never going to write, and then I'd have to take you to task for being unable to take a hint. Thank you for not compelling me do that, and also for disregarding your friends' very questionable letter-writing advice. "Absence has only sweetened the divinity of your fragrance"? I'm going to have to talk to Iroh about this. I'd expect that sort of advice from Sokka, but that is a new level. Glad to know that your reunion in Ba Sing Se is going well, though I don't know where you'll be when you get this. I've been fine - I haven't been in the field as much lately, since there's been a downturn in unrest, but there are still plenty of reports to read. Agni, so many reports! They're mind-numbing. You said you wished I were with you and I second that. All this reading would be easier with a partner._

_And thank you. I've never been good at responding to compliments, but that was very sweet of you._ You're _very sweet, in general. A little crazy, but sweet, and you make me feel my actual age instead of thirty years older than I am, and I miss you. I'll see you again soon, I promise._

_(And of course you can kiss me when I see you next, idiot. Whatever would make you think you couldn't?)_

_Soon,_

_Hina Oyama_


	2. 106 AG: Distracted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later, Zuko and Hina are rather unable to focus on a briefing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I completely made up the cuff thing because I didn’t know what any culture but the Water Tribes did for engagements. It’s not canon at all and I know this.

“So, as you can see, insurgent activity has been down in the south, but up in, uh...” Hina’s mind goes blank. “Uh...you know, the...”

”West?” Zuko furrows his brow, glancing at the map laid out on his desk. “Are you sure you’re all right?”   
  


Hina flushes. “Of course I am,” she says, a little defensive. “Why wouldn’t I be?”   
  


“You said ‘uh’ twice, Hina. You _never_ stumble over your words.” Zuko crosses his arms, looking almost amused. “Is something the matter?”   
  


“No,” she says honestly, because nothing’s the matter - nothing could be _better,_ really. “I’m fine. Now, insurgent activity in the west has primarily been connected to, um.” The memory of elated shock washing over her whole body and whispered words and a giddy kiss come to mind unbidden and, try as she does to shake them off, Hina’s thrown for a loop again, cursing herself for her lack of focus. “Um. Falling rice prices! It’s falling rice prices. Of course!”   
  


“Hina, please, take a minute.” Zuko no longer looks amused; now he’s decidedly worried. “And when you’re ready to tell me what exactly is wrong, please do.”   
  


Hina pinches the bridge of her nose, all pretense of professionalism falling away. “Nothing is wrong, Zuko,” she says, knowing they’re having this conversation as friends and not as Fire Lord and Spymistress. “I’ll admit to being distracted, but everything is...fine. Great, even.”   
  


“Oh?” Zuko notes her sheepish smile with one of his own. “Might this have something to do with Aang?”   
  


She flushes, relishing the ability to be able to admit to this, wear her heart on her sleeve without consequence. She lifts her right hand to show him the gilt silver cuff on her wrist with a smile, knowing it needs no explanation. Zuko’s face lights up just as she’d expected it would.   
  


“Congratulations!” He’s out of his chair in seconds and throwing his arms around his friend, all but crushing her. He’s not as tall as Aang, but Zuko has a good ten inches on Hina, and she feels a little swallowed by the hug. A little awkward, she pats him stiffly on the back, and he releases her. “You’re engaged, huh?”   
  


“I’m engaged,” she confirms, biting her lip to conceal the smile that wants to burst forth in brilliant color.   
  
His face falls after that. “Wait, does this mean I’ll have to replace you?”   
  


Hina rolls her eyes. “Zuko, this country would fall apart without me.” She pats his arm. “Of course I won’t quit. I love this job.”   
  


“But Aang-“ 

“Knows what he signed up for,” Hina said. “He knows he’s going to have to leave often, and that I’ll be here. It’ll be hard, but we’re willing to work for it.” 

That makes Zuko smile again. “I’m glad, Hina. You deserve this.”

“Thank you.” Her smile grows a little more nervous now. “But can I ask you something?”   
  


“Of course. Anything.” Zuko takes a seat across from her again.   
  


“Um.” She picks at her fingernails. “What’s it like?”   
  


“What’s what like? Marriage?” Zuko asks, his face softening when she nods nervously. “Well...it’s not easy. But you seem to know that already.”   
  


“Yeah. One of the many perks of falling in love with the Avatar,” Hina sighs. “‘Easy’ was never an option.”

”But it’s also the best thing I’ve ever done.” Zuko’s face glows the way it only does when he talks about Katara. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll wake up and find out I dreamed all of it, but then I do wake up, and she’s in my arms...” he smiles to himself, one not meant for Hina even though she’s seeing it. “She’s _everything._ That’s the only way I can describe it - she’s everything.”

”You’d think three years would’ve lessened the sap, but here we are,” Hina quipped. Her stomach clenched at the thought; sentiment didn’t come as easily to her as it did to her boss. 

”How could it?” Zuko’s mile-wide “thinking-about-my-wife” grin was out in full force now. “Agni, I fall more in love with that woman every _day_.”   
  


“Didn’t she threaten to murder you with a slipper, like, three hours ago?” Hina crosses her arms. She loves her fiancé, feels utterly secure in the fact that he loves her, too, but she doesn’t think she’d have such a favorable reaction to the argument Zuko and Katara had hashed out that morning.

”Yeah, but that’s normal.” He’s perfectly cheery about all of this, which Hina finds slightly appalling. “I can’t blame her, either. It can’t be easy to grow a person when there’s another person tugging at your skirt every minute of the day.”   
  


“Who, you?” Hina’s lip curls. She knows Zuko is referring to Crown Princess Izumi, now a year and a half old and more than a little clingy after being given the fact that her status as the baby of the family is soon to be supplanted, but she finds it more amusing this way.   
  


Zuko glares at her. “I’m talking about my daughter, Hina. I _know_ you know that.”   
  
  


“Of course, but it’s funnier to imagine you following Katara everywhere she goes.” Hina snickers. “You already do that anyway.”   
  


“I’m a doting husband, _Hina_! Is that such a crime?”   
  


“No, it’s actually very sweet,” Hina says, laughing. “But also a bit much sometimes.”   
  


“Oh, I’m sorry I want to make sure my pregnant wife is comfortable,” he shoots back, but he’s laughing too. “I didn’t realize it was so amusing.”   
  


“No, really, it _is_ sweet,” Hina reassured him. “I just...can’t picture that being Aang and I.”

”The doting or the parenting?” Zuko smirks. “You know, with your Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation heritage, your kids could be three different types of bender-“ 

“One short of an Avatar,” Hina jokes, paling. “Um. Yeah, that’s something I guess...I’ve never really thought much about.”   
  


“That’s all right. There’s time,” Zuko replies evenly.   
  


“Right. Because Katara wasn’t pregnant within six months of your wedding,” Hina teases. It had been a running joke between them, coming up with creative ways to get the council off of the royal couple’s backs about their not having an heir, but at the end of the day, they hadn’t used a single one of them.   
  


“We wanted kids,” he says, shuffling some papers and not meeting her eyes. “More than we wanted to hold out and spite the council. And you’re not exactly under pressure to have an heir-“

Hina sighs. “I’m marrying the last known Airbender, remember?” She crosses her arms. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to avoid the pressure, either.”   
  


“Then you can use all those excuses we came up with,” he says slyly. “Since my wife and I had no need of them-“

”You two are out of control,” Hina coughs. “Seriously. It’s been three years!”   
  


“We’re in love, Hina,” he says lightly. “You’ll understand when you’re-

Hina picks up a rolled-up scroll and swats him with it.   
  


“Older.”   
  


(Hina doubts she and Aang will ever be _that_ couple, but...there are worse things than being in love.) 


	3. 112 AG: Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aang’s favorite word for Hina isn’t one she’d expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The continuity of this one is a little bit weird because it takes place over such a long time: it starts during the events of The Waiting Game and ends years after the last posted oneshot. That’s because I wrote it weeks ago, in the middle of writing TWG, not for this collection. But it’s already a pretty patchwork-y anthology, so why not? 
> 
> Also, Hina *is* beautiful, IMHO as her creator, but she doesn’t agree with me. Luckily for all of us, Aang does. ;)

Hina’s never thought of herself as particularly beautiful. Usually, it doesn’t bother her. She knows how essential she is to the safety of the Fire Nation; she knows how intelligent she is, how passionate and driven, and how good she’s become at her job. She does not  need  to be beautiful; she is  useful,  and that is better. 

But sometimes, in her barest moments, Hina wishes she were beautiful for the sake of beauty alone.

Form follows function: that has always seemed, to Hina, to be the way she was formed. Her looks are functional, pragmatic; they are not enough to draw the eye, and there’s a kind of appeal in the minimalism of her face and figure, but there is no embellishment in them, not one lovely impracticality. For one, she has always been a strange combination of scrawny and muscular. There’s no delicacy in her frame, though it’s petite. Her face is flat, rounder than it is angular; there’s little to it when taken in profile but long lashes ringing seafoam-green eyes – that’s the Earth National in her, and her favorite of her features – and the bump at the end of her wide nose. She does not have the delicate bone structure prized among the women of the Fire Nation, nor the graceful figure. She has never thought of herself as ugly – function, that is the important thing – but sometimes she wishes she were beautiful; she certainly doesn’t think she’d ever use that word to describe herself. 

So it takes her completely off-guard when he does for the first time. 

The first time he does it, they’re at a ball that should be a mission, their work and the night nudging them ever-closer to each other. “You’re beautiful,” he tells her, and she does not believe it. But she dances with him and, in Fire Nation reds, they whirl as if the fate of a nation does not rest in their hands, all tentative touch and nerves and tempered enthusiasm. He is so  young,  that night, but for once she feels that youth, too. He presses his palm flat against hers and they circle each other, eyes the grey of storm clouds locking on ones the shade of the sea on an overcast day, and though the static between them is buried deep by unspoken agreement. It is not time yet for the fruition of tentative feelings, but it is a step. 

She goes beet-red, and she’s grateful for the surrounding darkness. “No, I’m not,” she demurs, because she’s never been able to take a compliment. 

“You are,” he insists. And even later, when things are a little more open and he doesn’t hold back, he keeps on insisting. 

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her when they gather for their friends’ wedding and dance just as they did the first time he felt so bold. (She does not believe it, but she kisses him for his trouble.) 

  
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs one late night of poring over paperwork. Their eyes are ringed and bloodshot with exhaustion, and her hair’s falling out of its topknot, and her face is ashen with the lack of sleep, and she couldn’t be  further  from beautiful right now. But he says it anyway, watching her as if she’s some mythical creature he might never catch sight of again, as if he has to memorize every detail of the way she looks  and moves and speaks just to prove her existence later on. And the tired smile he gives her is proof enough that he means it.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her when they kiss for the second time after a year’s separation, his forehead resting against hers. His eyes are closed. He still means it with all his heart. She almost believes it. 

“You’re beautiful,” he says, her hand in his, and he pulls her aside into a terraced garden where no one will overhear him as he asks if she’ll spend her life with him. Hina Oyama does not cry, but her eyes well up at the look on his face when she says  yes,  because seeing the adoration in his eyes before he pulls her into his arms and swings her around, she nearly feels beautiful. 

“You’re beautiful.” She’s in simple robes embroidered in red and green, he in yellow, and as they take their first steps towards forever to the approving cheers of those they’ve chosen to share this day with, Hina is too happy not to believe it. She’d never have thought herself the marrying type five years ago, but he is kind and enamored of her and he brings her adventure and he makes her believe in forever, in the idea that maybe, in some way, to someone, she is beautiful. 

“So are you,” Hina says truthfully, leaning into his shoulder as Zuko launches into a best man speech that everyone, most of all the hysterically-giggling Fire Lady, feels is a little too grandiose, even if incredibly well-meant. 

Slowly,  beautiful  is a word that begins to feel comfortable passing through Hina’s mind. He uses it often: mumbled against her hair when they are about to slip into sleep, spoken into the soft skin of her shoulder when they awaken in whatever improbably spiderlike tangle of limbs they’d managed to wrap themselves into in the middle of the night. He tells her she is beautiful when they have been separated, and when they come together. He says it when she’s in uniform and when she wears that sheer green robe she’d insisted was impractical but allowed Katara to foist on her anyway, when they spar and when they steal kisses between meetings, when she is crying and when she laughs so hard she cannot speak. 

He tells her she is beautiful when, too awkward in her inexperience of this kind to know what else to say, she wordlessly guides his hand to rest against her still-flat stomach so that he cannot possibly miss her meaning, and turns her face up to his with a shy smile. His free hand cups her cheek, disbelieving, and when he kisses her, it feels like all the joy in the world packed into twenty seconds. “You’re so beautiful, Hina,” he says breathlessly, and she relishes the sound of her name in his voice even after all these years, bright and clear and purposeful. And he keeps saying it, when he rubs her exhausted feet and when she cries over nothing and when she cries over  everything,  when she is sick and when she feels even less beautiful than she ever has. 

When he holds Yuna for the first time – a little bearer of a long-forgotten legacy now carried on only by her mother’s memories and Yuna herself, her grandmother’s namesake – he calls them both beautiful, and Hina agrees. He says the same of Yangchen two years later and Gyatso a year after that, but she always remembers the first most vividly.  


And after ten years, it’s just a part of who they are, “you’re beautiful” and “am I?” and “how could you not be?” 

He never stops telling Hina that she is beautiful, and she catches herself thinking that maybe, if it makes her beautiful in his beloved eyes, her plainness has a beauty all its own. 


	4. 118 AG: Unorthodox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it does not take long for the palace staff to realize that Zuko and Katara are far from a typical royal couple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk, man, this one is cheesy but it just makes me really happy.

Fire Lord Zuko has never exactly been a typical Fire Lord, so he's rather taken-aback when his staff seems surprised, in the days and weeks and months following the royal wedding, that he hasn't taken a typical Fire Lady, either. 

Oh, of course, there's the matter of Fire Lady Katara's heritage - that created enough uproar of its own to last the staff weeks after the engagement was announced - and her above-average involvement in the nation's politics. There is also her outspokenness, and the way both she and her husband know every servant and every member of their staff by name. There's the persistent rumor that the couple routinely sneaks out of the palace, though for what purpose no one has yet figured out. There's the way they breach protocol (one maid who happened to be dusting the room where the Fire Lord and Lady were meeting with their Spymistress had some particularly scandalous tidbits to share about the truly shocking level of familiarity the three showed - almost as if they were _friends,_ not master, mistress, and subordinate). There's the way Zuko has started slipping blue into his regalia to match his Lady, whose choosing to wear red is so unusual that it's fuel for the gossip mill in and of itself.

But most unorthodox of all is the fact that, by all accounts, the Fire Lord and Lady are _madly_ in love with each other. 

Of course, this conclusion is easily reached solely by observing them together: the way they'll catch each other's eyes in meetings and whoever is seated next to each of them will hear their sharp intakes of breath; the tiny touches they think no one can see; the five children they have who cannot _possibly,_ even in the crudest estimation, all be backups in case something befalls Crown Princess Izumi; that, and the fact that they are rather shockingly affectionate. It is a rite of passage among newly-hired palace staff to stumble upon their sovereigns stealing a kiss somewhere inappropriate - once it was a linen closet, once behind a curtain in the throne room, another time in the icebox that Katara, whose brother had gifted the prototype to the palace, was supposed to be repairing with her bending - when they should be working. (It's shockingly easy to catch them without even trying to - any staff members with jobs that take them into any nook, cranny, or closet big enough for two people to squeeze into have a decent shot of it.) It's plain as day that Zuko and Katara are mad as teenagers about each other well into their later years. 

But, though they know the basics, no one sees how deep their affection for each other truly runs. They don't see the never-ending thrill of knowing that the wait was worth it, that three years of pain meant a lifetime together. They don't see the way Fire Lord Zuko watches his wife's shoulders rise and fall evenly in the dawning light when he awakens before her (and he _always_ does), or the way Fire Lady Katara won't fall asleep without her arms around her husband, her body curled around his protectively. (Sometimes they reverse the position, but falling asleep this way - a stronghold against a hostile world - is a habit that neither of them wants to break.) They don't see the tears they shed when Katara holds her children for the first time or when their babies snuggle up against Zuko's shoulder, warm and trusting and content. They don't see whispered reassurances when nightmares jolt them awake, soothing caresses carefully applied as balm to an aching heart. They don't see the way they look at each other behind closed doors or the kisses they steal-

(Well, there _was_ that very regrettable instance in which they traumatized a recently-hired housekeeper who'd come to put away some linens only to find her Fire Lady perched precariously atop a shelf of napkins, her ankles locked around her husband's waist as they engaged in some _rather passionate_ facial combat while they should've been in a meeting. But the armory's still safe, and so is the back corner of the throne room if no one's cleaning in there...) 

Nevertheless, though what they see - even if the Council complains endlessly about it - is the tip of the iceberg, it is plain as day that both monarchs of the Fire Nation are head-over-heels for each other. And though some stuffier staffers and officials used to cold, lifeless political marriages are rather offended by the idea of a Fire Lord and Lady whose love for each other outweighs all but their love for their ( _many)_ children, most admit that it's refreshing. 

It is, truly, as they find that, in this instance, water is far from dousing fire. The two complement each other spectacularly, in politics and in love alike; they work tirelessly to patch the wounds of a broken world from the moment they marry. They are passionate and convicted, and they buoy each other. They know the servants by name and it's been ages since any of them had to fear a reprimand, discharge, or worse for the tiniest mistake, for their new employers are down-to-earth and kind. There's light and warmth in the palace that it hasn't known in a century. There's a long-running weekly contest - whoever has the misfortune to stumble upon Zuko and Katara in corners and closets most often in a week wins. Life is never easy and protocol never fully breachable, but for the first time, the Fire Nation's palace can _breathe._

Of course, soon enough there are four princesses and a prince, three of whom are unholy terrors, and it's struggling to catch that breath. Their parents all but throw anyone who tries to suggest that they should, perhaps, not take such an active role in their children's upbringing off the palace roof (they certainly do so in spirit), sparing their would-be nurses and nannies the trouble of wrangling three out of the five heirs hell-bent on chaos, but terrorize the staff they still do. Oldest daughter Izumi is too quiet and studious to cause trouble, and third-born, only-son Ryuji is simply too sweet (he's a favorite), but Kya's an instigator of the highest order and Sakari and Sana - second, fourth, and fifth, respectively - will do absolutely anything she says. And the problem is exponentially exacerbated by the fact that three other palace children, whom Zuko and Katara are all too happy to claim as their own when the Avatar and the Spymistress are traveling, are joined to their brood at the hip.

Though oldest daughter Yuna is nearly as beloved as Izumi and Ryuji, and Gyatso, the youngest, is far too serious for his age and therefore an ardent rule-follower, Yangchen, the second-born daughter, is perhaps the unholiest terror of them all. She's all too happy to join the Terrible Threesome, as Kya, Sana, and Sakari have been dubbed by certain officials, while Izumi is busy with her studies and Yuna and Ryuji, who are the closest of friends from early childhood, are off in their own little world. (The latter two, softhearted children who are as easily affectionate with each other and everyone else as can be, trail behind Katara almost constantly, and she cannot resist them). Nevertheless, the families are so close as to have merged, eight siblings instead of five and three. Shockingly varied in features and personality, with at least one bender of each element across the group (Spymistress Oyama, apparently, has a great deal of recessive genes for a nonbender), they are - in Katara's ever-optimistic estimation - a symbol of hope. And they are loved and carefree (well, Izumi may well be fundamentally incapable of loosening up, but other than that) and _happy_ and everything their parents were not as children. 

In short, they are the realization of their parents' greatest dreams and their tutors' worst nightmares.

And, to the perhaps-eternal dismay of certain senior members of the staff, their workers' weekly contest shows absolutely no sign of fading away as the years go by. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also just for reference! Kid orders:
> 
> ZUTARA: Izumi (firebender)/Kya (waterbender)/Ryuji (waterbender)/Sakari (nonbender)/Sana (Firebender)  
> HAANG: Yuna (Airbender)/Yangchen (earthbender)/Gyatso (Fierender)* 
> 
> ***because nonbenders can have bending kids and Hina is both Earth National and Fire National, she and Aang could possibly have earthbender/firebender kids. And ofc I had to make that happen. :p


	5. 108 AG: Avatar State

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mission gone wrong forces Hina to confront a side of Aang she has yet to see.
> 
> (These are no longer chronological. Takes place about two yearS into their marriage or four years after the end of TWG.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to @theonewithtoomanyfandoms and, as always @tonguetide and @thewhiitelotus, for their ideas and guidance. They wanted Avatar State Haang angst, and I added pregnancy because I’m me and I can’t resist, so here you go! I hope you love this thing I wrote on my phone in half an hour because I do too.

“Hina?” Aang knocks at the door of the room they’ve booked for the night and his eyes crease in worry when she doesn’t answer. “Hina, love? Are you alright?” 

Still nothing. Shaking his head, he bends a key from the earthen floor and unlocks the door, his heart plummeting when he sees that it’s exactly as it was when he left it: Hina doesn’t appear to have even _moved_ since he stepped out to get them something to eat (she always craves mangos at night and he can’t risk _not_ having some on hand). She’s crumpled in the middle of the bed and her shoulders are heaving as if she’s crying, though she’s not making a sound. 

“Hina,” he says as softly as he can manage, making his way over to the bed and sitting down beside her. “What’s the matter?” 

She doesn’t even lift her face. “It’s fine, Aang,” she says a little shortly. “It’s just a mood swing.”

She pauses and then mutters, “probably.” 

“Are you sure?” He asks, moving close enough to wrap his arm around her shoulder. Closed-off as her posture is, Hina gratefully relaxes against him, a shudder of relief shaking her as she melts into her husband’s familiar arms. But there’s a tension in her muscles that even the gentle pressure of Aang’s chin resting atop her head doesn’t relax. “You’re tense. Are you worried about the mission?”

“No, the hard part’s over.” She dabs at her eyes with the corner of her tunic, the loose cotton nightshirt she’s been wearing lately even though she isn’t showing yet. 

“About the baby?” Aang tries again. He knows she worries about that. 

“No!” Hina snaps. “I’m just...processing things!” 

“Like what?” Aang massages her shoulders with gentle, circular motions, the way he knows she likes it. She’s obviously reluctant to talk but she’s his _partner_ here, so he needs to know what’s wrong; but, perhaps more importantly, she’s his _wife,_ so he _wants_ to know. 

“Just...earlier,” she admits. 

His eyes darken and his grip on her tightens. “That never should’ve happened, Hina.” He holds onto her as if she’s going to disappear. “I’ll never _let_ it happen again.” 

“You can’t solve anything by going into the Avatar State, Aang!”

Dread blooms in his stomach. _Of course that’s what this is about,_ he realizes. _She’s never seen me do that before…_

“Is that what’s wrong?” he asks. “You’ve never seen me in the Avatar State?” 

She nods weakly and he clutches her to his chest. “I was already in danger and then _you…”_

“ _No one_ was going to hurt my wife.” Aang doesn’t miss the way her fingers fist in his robes for purchase at his words, and he moves his hand to rest against the barely-there swell of her abdomen where the nightshirt has ridden up. “Or our child.” 

“Aang, I was cleared for this. I’m-“ 

“Obviously not fine!” He protests, smoothing his palm across her stomach just to remind himself that she’s _there._ “You’re _trembling_ , Hina. I’ve seen you go after dozens of enemy agents by yourself and you’ve _never_ been this shaken-up.”

“Yeah, but I’m okay,” she protests weakly, squirming out of his arms to lean against the pillows. If he didn’t know her so well, Aang would’ve taken it as an insult, but he knows now that it’s a good sign: she’s ready to open up a little, and she wants a more comfortable place to do it. She pats the pillows next to her as she stretches out and he follows, laying his head on her abdomen. (The placement, while not conscious, isn’t lost on Hina, and she manages a tiny smile. Sometimes that irritating protectiveness of his can be sweet.) “Really, Aang. It was nothing I couldn’t handle.” 

“I was so scared, Hina,” he admits, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I thought-“

“ _I_ was scared.” He looks up at her and his wife looks more vulnerable in that three-word admission than she had at any moment during the recon mission that had gone so wrong. 

“Because of the Avatar State?” 

She nods.

“Oh, Hina…” 

“It’s fine. Really.” She sniffles, brushing away tears. “I’m just overreacting. Stupid hormones, right?” 

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs against the thin fabric of her shirt. “I didn’t know what else to do.” 

“I would’ve been okay,” Hina lies. “We both would’ve.”

Both of them know she was cornered and, sure, the _Avatar State_ might’ve been a bit much, but she needed his help. She’s got to hate that - Hina _never_ needs help in the field - and the shock of seeing him in the Avatar State for the first time…

“Did it scare you?” Aang asks. 

He doesn’t even have to clarify what _it_ is. “Yeah,” Hina admits, and he sits up as fast as he can and pulls her into his lap and presses kisses to her hair and does everything he can _think_ of to remind her that this is safe, he’s her _husband_ and _partner_ and _best friend_ and _the father of her child_ and he loves her more than he’s ever loved anything in his life.

But she’s still stiff. 

“I’m so _sorry_ , Hina,” he whispers against her hair. She shudders. 

“It’s all right, darling,” she reassures him, albeit a bit stiffly. “Really.” 

“Darling?” Somehow, _that_ hurts more than anything else she’s said or done. Hina _never_ calls him that. “Why ‘darling’? I’ve always been your little av-“

“Don’t, Aang.” Hina buries her face in her palms. “Just...please. Don’t.” 

(She gets it, now: the weight behind the title she’s only used as a term of endearment thus far, just how _powerful_ the man she loves can be when he’s given a cause, that _she_ might be that cause.) 

“Okay.” He runs his fingers through her hair, trying and failing not to think too much. “Okay.” 

“We’ll be alright...won’t we?” 

“Of course, short stuff.” 

She leans into him as if the hands that are holding her as gently as they know how couldn’t level cities if they felt like it, because there is nothing else to be done. 

This is simply a part of the man she loves and she realizes, lying limp against him as he strokes her hair and face and abdomen and whispers reassurances, that it is one she’ll have to accept. 

She can do that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that line in TWG when Aang tells Hina she’s going to send him into the Avatar State? 
> 
> Yeah.


	6. 107 AG: Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the eve of her wedding, Hina seeks out Katara's advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear these are all Haang or both now and I need to write more Zutara-only ones but this idea kind of took root in my brain and wouldn't go away. There's a reason for that. 
> 
> As some of you know but most of you don't, I turned eighteen this spring and I'll be starting my freshman year of college next week, so I'm experiencing a lot of changes and am sort of approaching a crossroads. That's pretty heavy to deal with sometimes and, in a way, I've been using The Waiting Game, where my beloved ATLA characters (and one OC) are in their late teens (TWG) and early twenties (these oneshots), as a way to help myself sort out the many complicated emotions that come with young adulthood. They're also a vehicle through which I can explore deeper concerns of mine - and one of those is concerns is that of physical intimacy. I grew up in a very religious household where such things simply were not discussed, so I spent eleven years totally unaware that they even existed and the next seven dutifully avoiding them and, when I could not, pretending they didn't exist and/or feeling unbearably guilty for having accidentally acquired ~forbidden knowledge~. Even though my faith is very important to me and shapes my views to this day, I don't think that a view of intimacy that left me with amount of shame and guilt was healthy, and this summer I've been in the process of trying to get myself into a healthier frame of mind about it. Thus, characters who have the same apprehension and doubt that I do are a _huge_ comfort to me, as are characters who share my healthier values on the subject. (There's a reason that "everyone waits for marriage" is my comfort headcanon.) 
> 
> And who better to use as an expression of that doubt than Hina, a character who's never been particularly comfortable talking about feelings? 
> 
> Marriage may be a ways off for me, but this is me working through my extremely complicated relationship with sex the only way I know how: through amusing ATLA fluff.  
> (Which I definitely made myself blush with. Oops.)

Hina should have been asleep two hours ago. 

That does not, however, change the fact that it is three in the morning, and Hina is decidedly _not_ asleep. Thoughts racing, she shifts incessantly in an attempt to release enough nervous energy to quiet her mind, or at least find a position that’ll lull her to sleep, but it doesn’t do much. All she can feel are empty sheets in a bed that’s always felt too large, and _that_ sends her mind places that she'd rather not let it go. 

In a little under a week, she won’t be sleeping alone, and the thought both fills her heart to the brim and makes her feel nauseous. 

Of course, she knew this was coming. It isn’t as if she hadn't been aware that this was one of the many ways life would change once she married; if it was _just_ the bed-sharing on her mind, the warmth she feels would be that of cozy anticipation. But it isn’t _._ Sharing a bed meant other things, too - things that make her face warm with embarrassment in the darkness of her chambers. 

Really, she tries to tell herself, it’s silly to be so embarrassed. It’s a simple fact of life and she’s _twenty-six,_ no longer a teenager giggling at bawdy jokes or sharing awkward kisses - she’s a grown woman. She’s _getting married next week,_ for Agni's sake, and she adores her fiancé. The way everyone talks about it, the idea of sharing her rooms and her heart and herself with him should be cause for celebration, not anxiety.

So why, she wonders, does it terrify her?

* * *

Hina's barely slept by the time she drags herself down to breakfast the next morning, and it shows. Aang throws worried glances in her direction a few too many times, and Zuko asks if she needs the day off (he's been making that offer often lately, for unknown reasons). And Katara, though she still has baby Kya nestled in the sling she wears (Izumi's with the nurse, Hina figures), takes one look at Hina and, as soon as she's gotten a sesame bun and some tea in her system, drags her off by the arm. 

(No one bothers to ask where they're going. It would be futile to try to stop Katara from doing _anything_ she's set her mind to, is they simply keep their heads down as the two pass by.)

"You better not be getting cold feet," she says as soon as they've ducked into Hina's study, which Katara has correctly pinpointed as the place Hina would be most comfortable retreating to in a situation like this. 

"No, nothing like that." Hina's voice comes out weak and anemic, and her first instinct tells her that she wants to bolt again. But part of her wants to stay, too, realizes Katara's the best confidant she has in this area and thinks talking might help. After all, given the rate their family is growing (they've had two daughters in three years and both have said they want more) and the number of times Hina's caught Zuko and Katara passionately making out in back corners during work hours, she seems to be...rather well-versed. "I'm just a little...nervous." 

Katara smiles knowingly. "That's natural," she says, as if she hadn't been bubbling over with excitement for the entire length of her engagement. Hina doubts, a little bitterly, that Katara _ever_ shared her anxiety in this area. "It's a big change. Most people would be nervous." 

"You weren't," Hina points out. 

Katara gives her a funny look, bouncing Kya on her shoulder. "Of course I was nervous before my wedding."

"Really?" Hina's face scrunches up. "You seemed so excited." 

"Oh, I was," Katara says, and now Hina is _thoroughly_ confused. "But I was still nervous. For different reasons than you are, I'm sure, but I was nervous."

"But you and Zuko-" 

"Were thrilled," she said, "but that didn't mean _everyone_ was." Kya fusses and Katara takes a seat, stroking her younger daughter's downy curls. "There was all kinds of opposition to the marriage. _That's_ what I was nervous about." She glances back over at Hina. "But I take it that's not why you're nervous."

Hina's cheeks flush and she has to think carefully about her next words. "...no," she says evenly. "And I'm not doubting my choice, either." She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment and inhales deeply before opening them. "I love him. I'm not going to change my mind." 

"So..." it's impossible to tell whether Katara already knows what her friend is going to say next, but Hina suspects she does. "What's there to be scared of, then?" 

"Are you really going to make me say it?" Hina knows she looks miserable. She hopes it sinks in. 

Katara's face softens. "Oh, you mean..." 

"Yeah." Hina can't meet her eyes. "The...wedding night. And stuff." 

"I get why you're scared, but you don't need to be." Katara's lips quirk into a smile that _cannot_ be good. "That's the _fun_ part!" 

This is seems like it should be a relief, until Hina realizes how Katara _knows_ that, and then she wants to choke.

Katara notices the horrified expression on her face and laughs. "You should've told me," she says gently, still chuckling. Kya stirs at the sound. "I could've helped you...I don't know, get used to the idea?"

"No," Hina chokes. " _Please_ no." 

"Hina, love, you have questions." Katara plants her arms on the desk in front of her, as if challenging Hina to deny that. (They both know she can't.) "And I think I'm a pretty good person to ask." 

"It's just unfamiliar, Katara," Hina sighs. "I don't need help, and I certainly don't need _personal anecdotes._ At all." _Not when your husband is like my little brother,_ she wants to add, but thinks it unwise. "What I _need_ is to get over myself." 

Katara's face grows more serious. "That bad, huh?" 

Hina's face falls, though she's relieved that Katara gets it now. "That bad."

"Oh, Hina," she sighs, standing up to take a seat on the settee next to Hina. "I wish I knew what to tell you..." 

"It's okay, really." Hina puts her palm on Katara's forearm, glancing over at her. "I'm not good enough at talking about it to even know what to ask." 

"I take it you've never..." Katara prompts. 

Hina shakes her head vehemently. "Nowhere close." 

"Okay." Katara pauses for a moment, considering her next words. "And...is that what scares you? The fear of the unknown?" 

"I guess," Hina says, shrugging weakly and unsure if that's even true. "But it isn't just that." She takes a deep breath. "What if I'm terrible at it?" 

"Practice," Katara says with a knowing smirk that Hina refuses to read too much into. 

"Okay, fair point. What if I find out we're horribly incompatible?" 

"Trust me, Hina, you aren't." Now it's Katara's turn to lay her hand on Hina's arm. "You and Aang are wonderful for each other. You don't need to be sleeping together to know that." 

She makes a decent point, Hina decides, but she's not convinced. "Fine, then. What if I don't like it?" 

_That_ makes Katara grin wickedly. "I doubt that'll be a problem," she snickers. "Trust me, if there's anything you shouldn't be worried about, it's that." 

"What makes you so sure?" Hina's face is flaming now and she feels like a fool for being so _flustered,_ but she can't help it. 

Katara raises her eyebrows and tilts her head down, indicating Kya asleep in her sling. "Hina, come _on."_

 _I really didn't need to know that._ "I need to stop asking questions I don't want the answers to," Hina mutters, her face flushing an even brighter red.

Katara ignores this. "And you know you don't actually have to do anything on the actual wedding night, right?"

"But I _want_ to," Hina blurts out, surprising even herself. "But I also don't?"

"Well." Katara pats her arm. "If you _do_ decide to..." she goes starry-eyed and Hina's eyes widen in anticipatory terror. " _My_ wedding night was the best night of my _life-"_

Hina takes the opportunity to excuse herself, feeling slightly reassured but _very_ ill. 

* * *

**~the next day~**

"Um." Zuko's eyes bug open and Hina winces. "Maybe you should talk to Katara about this." 

"I already did and I wish I could bleach my brain," Hina tells him, crossing her arms. "And I'm running out of people to ask for advice, so..." 

"That's...not a conversation I should be having with my staff!" Zuko protests, bright-red and desperate to avoid the discussion as if he's _not_ a father of two and, apparently, a rather amorous husband (a fact which Hina _desperately_ wishes she could forget but can't). 

"Your wife was fine with it," Hina huffed. " _More_ than fine." But she knows she won't get anything more out of him. 

Zuko narrows his eyes. "Um...what exactly did she say to you?" 

"Too much." Hina shudders at the memory. " _Far_ too much." 

"Oh." 

Zuko looks like he wants to fall through the floor; Hina privately decides that she would gladly join him. 

* * *

**~eight days later~**

Katara is smirking before Hina and Aang even enter the breakfast room the morning after the wedding and _every single one_ of their friends who'd agreed to meet for breakfast before they all left glances first at the couple, then at Katara, then at each other, and copies the expression. 

"Ignore that. This is just how they are," Aang whispers and Hina grips his hand a little tighter, grinning sheepishly. She'd roll her eyes, usually, but right now she _can't._

"What are you looking at?" she says, trying a little too hard to sound cranky. It doesn't work and Katara bursts into giggles. 

"I just like being right," she wheezes as soon as she can catch her breath. 


	7. 104 AG: Rainstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara returns from a business trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This exists only because I have a Thing for cuddly Zutara. You're welcome?

Katara's been given so much advice in the year since she married that she can't even dream of keeping it all straight; some of it is good and some of it is utterly baffling. And she might be rather biased right now, as she slips back through the heavy mahogany door as quietly as she can and brushes the dust from her traveling dress, but she counts the oft-repeated idea that being apart is a _good_ thing for the couple among the latter category. 

Perhaps in the future there'll come a time when she and Zuko need to be alone, but right now, the the sight of her husband alone in their bed only reminds her how much she's missed him. He's lying on his stomach, head turned to the side, and he looks so _peaceful_ like this that it makes Katara's heart clench. This two-week trip to the North Pole marked their first night apart (really, their first _fourteen,_ all in a row) since the wedding; she's missed him desperately and jumped at the chance to make it back to Caldera City a day earlier than expected, knowing she could surprise him. So she slips off her dress and, fearing that she'll wake Zuko if she tries to find something else to wear, slips beneath the sheets in only her underthings.

Instantly, the warmth she'd missed so much in her two weeks at the North Pole envelops her, and she squirms closer to the source of that heat until her head comfortably rests against his back. He's shirtless - always is, given how hot he runs - and she relishes the feeling of warm, soft skin against her cheek when, for the last fourteen days, she's been sleeping bundled in countless blankets that gave her plenty of warmth but none of the human kind.

Her _favorite_ kind. 

Zuko doesn't even stir as she snuggles down into the sheets beside him and she's smiling as she drifts off. 

* * *

Next thing she knows, Katara is stirring as she feels movement beneath her and hands gently shifting her body so her human pillow can move. She makes a sleepy, protesting noise, still too exhausted to realize what's going on or _anything_ except for the fact that she needs to sleep and she's not thrilled that that isn't what she's currently doing. But then she feels cold satin against her cheek - well, perhaps not truly _cold,_ but she misses the warmth of her last pillow - and she squawks indignantly, losing the battle to keep her eyes shut. 

Her indignation is swiftly forgotten when she feels the brush of fingers along her face. 

"You're back early," Zuko says softly as soon as he knows she's awake. She leans into his touch as he lightly caresses her jaw, smiling tiredly. "I missed you." 

"G'morning," she murmurs, pulling herself back towards him and insistently planting her cheek against his chest. He's propped up against the pillows and he takes her into his arms without a moment's hesitation, rubbing his cheek against her hair. Katara squirms a little in his embrace and wraps her own arms around his waist. "I wanted to s'prise you." 

"Mm. Mission accomplished." His hands skim her shoulders, arms, back and she settles into the comforting warmth with a little sigh that only seems to encourage him. "You should've woken me up when you got back, though." 

"You needed to sleep," she protests, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder just because she _can_ now. 

"Maybe, but I _wanted_ you," he tells her. 

"Sap," she teases, a little more awake now. "I wasn't about to wake my sleep-deprived husband in the middle of the night just to tell him I was back." 

"But I _like_ it when you wake me up," he whines. Katara can't help but laugh and she plants another kiss to his jaw, shifting until she's tucked tight under his chin. "I've had to cuddle with a pillow since you left, you know."

"Oh?" she smiles up at him coyly. "Am I so easily replaced?" 

"No!" he almost looks genuinely worried and Katara melts at the frantic expression on his face, knocking her knee into his just so he knows she's kidding. He presses his leg up against hers at the contact and shudders when her icy foot winds around his ankle. "That's what I was saying. A grown man cuddling with a pillow?" he pauses. "It was _depressing._ Even if pillows don't have ice cubes for feet." 

"You can always go back to the pillow if you want," Katara teases, shifting until she's practically on top of him and he yelps when her icy feet dig into his calves. "I bet it wouldn't do _this."_

His breath catches. "I bet it wouldn't," he says, and apparently that's all he can take before he kisses her speechless. 

She's giggling when they come up for air and she doesn't even really know _why,_ but she doesn't _care,_ either, as she presses her hand to his chest. It's almost as cold as her feet and Zuko almost immediately takes it between his hands, smiling knowingly at the contented little noise she lets out when his warm hands envelop hers. "Do me a favor?" he asks her as she releases her palm, warm enough to satisfy him now, and gently sets it back against his chest where she'd placed it before. 

"'m too tired for favors," she murmurs, but he knows she's not turning him down. 

"Stay," he rasps. "Just stay in this morning." His eyes are wide and imploring and Katara can't help but feel her heart flutter at the way he looks at her like she holds his heart in her no-longer-icy palms. 

At the way she knows she _does._

"Of course, Zuko," Katara says, rolling over to lay face-up against the pillows on her side and pulling him back in. She absently runs her fingers through his tangled hair, and Zuko leans into her touch like a cat, his eyes fluttering closed. She adds, "I missed you, too." 

"Then can we make up for it?" he finally shifts, lifting his chin up to gauge his wife's reaction. 

"We already are, love," she laughs. "I'm a little too tired for anything more than this, if _that's_ what you were saying." 

"I wasn't," he tells her, "but it's raining, and I don't want to get up, and I want to not get up with _you."_

Katara glances at the window and realizes he's right - it _is_ raining, though she hadn't noticed, caught up as she was in their long-awaited reunion. "That sounds nice," she tells him. 

"Good," he sighs against her shoulder. He falls silent after that and, in the quiet, all Katara can hear is the sound of rain gently striking the windowpanes. Her gentle touch and the rhythmic patter of raindrops lull Zuko into sleep, and Katara can't help but press a kiss to his hair. 

"It's good to be back," she murmurs, before she laces her arms protectively around his waist and lets the rain and his breathing calm her until she drifts off, too.


	8. 108 AG: Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hina and Aang complete the second leg of their recon mission. Being that the author is who she is, this involves a swanky party. (A sequel to Ch. 5: Avatar State and a companion piece of sorts to Ch 6: Advice.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Haang Nation - aka Maren, Dee, and Brittany - asked for more undercover shenanigans, and I love almost nothing more than a) going undercover at swanky parties and b) the kiss-to-distract-pursuers trope, so this happened. It's a follow-up to both "Avatar State" and "Advice" because Why Not. 
> 
> Also, this is what I was using for Hina's dress reference: https://images.app.goo.gl/JEqDP5pZeqYZu3Ra6

Green has always been Hina’s favorite color. 

She’s not really sure why, aside from the obvious Earth Kingdom association. Maybe it’s because of her eyes, or the reminder that she’s never  _ only  _ the Spymistress of the Fire Nation. Regardless, all of Hina’s favorite things are green: the terraced rice fields of her grandparents’ farm and her memories of her mother and the pair of polished mahogany combs inlaid with green stone that she’d taken from her parents’ things before she fled. 

And with time, Aang’s favorite things, she’s come to realize, have also become green ones: Hina’s eyes and the filmy green robe she loves to sleep in and the combs she’d worn to pin up her elaborate twist on their wedding day. But his favorite things are yellow, too, soft cotton robes and ripe moon peaches and the sunrise. So they have a deal on nights like this. 

Even when it could not matter less, even when they’re on an intelligence-gathering trip that just so  _ happens  _ to be culminating in a formal gathering, even when their goal needs to be getting to the source of an issue and rooting it out, by unspoken agreement, they wear each other’s colors. It is a  _ business occasion,  _ and tonight the couple’s erstwhile wearing of green and yellow reflects a need to stay anonymous as much as it does the effortless trade-off of cultures that their union represents, but Hina still smiles when she meets her husband at the door in yellow silk and his breath catches in his throat. She wants to get as much mileage out of this dress as she can before it doesn’t fit her anymore and the way he’s looking at her reminds her why she bothered. 

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, indulging himself in the most discreet kiss he can steal as they walk arm-in-arm down the hall towards the hotel’s ballroom. Neither knows quite what to make of their posh accommodations in the glamorous Upper Ring hotel they’re staying in, but Hina privately thinks that, strange as it feels to sit in the lap of luxury, it’s infinitely preferable to the cramped stateroom they stayed in on their  _ last  _ trip to Ba Sing Se.

(It’s an even odder juxtaposition when she truly thinks about it: last time they visited this city, she and Aang were only just getting to know each other; now they have six years of history between them and a two-year marriage to show for it.) 

“I knew you’d like this one,” Hina tells him after a moment. “Have I ever told you that green suits you?” 

“Several times, yes.” The arm that’s been wrapped around her back squeezes a little, just enough pressure to let her know he means it well. “It seems appropriate, given that we’re actually  _ in  _ the Earth Kingdom…”

“Yeah, but you still do it for me,” she teases. He’s wearing a hat to disguise his tattoos that both are fully aware looks ridiculous, necessary as it is, and Hina pokes at it, shifting it just an inch off-center and snickering at the wounded look he gives her. Nevertheless, Aang gives a half-shrug -  _ guilty as charged -  _ as they approach the ballroom, handing the embossed invitations they’d had to put themselves in such peril to obtain yesterday (truly, it was ridiculous, given how  _ easy  _ that phase of the mission had been meant to be) to a bouncer at the door, and step in. 

“That’s…” Aang starts and trails off, eyes widening as he takes in the opulently-decorated ballroom packed to the gills with people. 

Hina nods in agreement. “...something.” 

* * *

“Don’t panic, but I think we’re about to be recognized.” 

_ Oh-so-predictably,  _ Aang takes this as a reason to  _ very indiscreetly _ look behind him, for which Hina digs her elbow into his ribs. “By who?” he asks. 

“By  _ whom,”  _ Hina corrects. “And do you see that couple talking to the Beifongs?” 

“Um…” Aang tries to look back without turning his head, which doesn’t really work. “No?” 

“They’re diplomats who were stationed in the Fire Nation last year,” Hina whispers. “They’ve definitely seen both of us before, so I’ve been trying to avoid them, but they keep looking over here and I think they might be starting to catch on.” 

“I thought Toph said she’d keep people away from us!” Aang whisper-shouts. He’s not wrong - they’d told Toph that they’d be in attendance, knowing she’d be able to get into the party with her parents, and she’d agreed to act as support from the inside - but, as hard as she’s been trying, there’s only so much their friend can do to keep the diplomats from staring. And it’s not surprising: they’ve had to talk up countless people of importance tonight, posing as manufacturers in order to investigate the alleged corruption of certain Earth Kingdom companies suspected to be taking advantage of longstanding trade contracts with the Fire Nation. Evidently the disguise is wearing thin. 

“She did, but it isn’t working and we can’t cause a scene, so we need to throw them off,” Hina tells him, eyes scanning the room for exits until her eyes light on one door in particular and she nods in recognition. “Just follow me.” 

He obliges and, in a few moments, they’re out in the hallway, ducking into a closet full of brooms and dusting fans. Hina’s always looking for exit strategies and on the way in, she’d noticed that the door to what she’d correctly suspected was a janitor’s closet was slightly ajar; it’s the perfect place to lie low for more reasons than one. 

Cramped together in the dark, Hina can hear Aang’s heartbeat as he wraps his arms around her, muttering something about the need to save space. “Won’t someone find us here if they come looking?” he asks. 

“Oh, of course.” He can’t see the way Hina grins at that. “But I have a plan.” 

“Of course you do,” he chuckles, tightening his hold on her waist. Wordlessly, Hina tucks under his chin, pressing her cheek to the green satin of his coat; they stay that way for a moment, enjoying the quiet and the warmth of each other after a long night of too much small talk. “I’m sorry about yesterday. You know that, right?” 

“I do,” Hina sighs. “It’s all right, Aang. It’s a part of you and I know that. It’ll just…” 

“Take some getting used to?” he prompts. 

“Yeah.” She feels everything in her bones now - the warmth of his arms around her and the weight of his chin resting atop her head and the gentle thump of his heartbeat where she rests her head. “But I know I can do that.” She pulls back, just enough to look him in the eye, reach up and cup his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere, little Avatar.” 

His eyes flutter shut at the contact and the sweetness of her words and he ducks to kiss her, soft and tender as his arms around her waist pull her in. He kisses reverently, kisses as if he still can’t believe he even  _ can,  _ and the warmth blooms like a sigh of relief into Hina’s chest as she notches her hands behind his neck. It’s been too long since she felt as comfortable as she does here, hiding out in a closet with one ear to the door to catch the sounds of footsteps if anyone approaches. She’s been sick so often in the past month that it’s hardly crossed her mind, but she’s missed this. 

“That was my backup plan,” she laughs after he lets her go. 

“What, kissing?” Aang rests his forehead against hers even though he has to lean down at an awkward angle to do it. “You mean, if anyone walked in?” 

She nods even though she knows he can’t see her. “No one wants to watch a couple make out,” she explained. “They’d take one look and slam the door in our faces. Plus,” she points out, playing with his collar, “they can’t see our faces when they’re smashed together.”

“That’s not a very romantic reason to kiss me,” Aang teases. “But I’ll take it.” 

“It can be,” she murmurs, her tone undeniably teasing. She rises on her tiptoes and she’s so close that her breath ghosts his face but she doesn’t kiss him, not yet. 

Hina Oyama is rarely a tease, but after the week she’s had - waking up sick and crying herself to sleep, the first leg of their mission going south and the shock of seeing exactly what that had done to her husband - she could use a release.

And he is  _ so  _ easy. 

“Can it?” he asks, and now their faces are so close that she can see the blush in his cheeks even in the dark. Hina nods and brushes her lips against his as briefly and as lightly as she knows how. 

“Mmhm,” she murmurs as he pulls her back in. She turns her head at the last moment so that his lips touch her cheek instead and laughs softly at the way she can  _ feel  _ him pouting without even needing to see it. He ducks his fingers under her chin so she has to face him and, eyes locking on each other in the dark, Hina  _ finally  _ gives in and she’s kissing him as if her life depends on it. She knows it hasn’t been that long, but she cannot shake the feeling that she has been without something she needs for weeks and he is the only thing that can satisfy her. So Hina kisses him with all the hunger she’s been trying not to feel, releases all the stress and strain of the past weeks into a single kiss, and she expects to feel consumed but instead she feels  _ buoyant  _ here in this moment with absolutely nothing between herself and her beloved. 

She hates her lungs for forcing her to pull back and breathe.

“Well, that’s new,” he mutters, and Hina just knows he’s blushing. It’s almost amusing - they’ve been married for two years now, they’re expecting a child, and it still surprises him every time she wants him. It’s a pleasant kind of surprise, but the fact that it’s a surprise at all makes Hina giggle like a teenager. 

  
“Is it?” she laughs, hunger somewhat sated and affection bubbling up in its place. “You seem surprised.” 

“A little bit,” he admits, taking both of her hands and pressing them to his heart. “In the best way.” 

“I’m not sure why,” she says, relishing the simple warmth of his hands over hers. “I mean…” she takes one hand and presses it to her stomach, still flat beneath her yellow hanfu. “How else would  _ this  _ have happened?” 

That, Hina observes, is a benefit of time. She’s been bold and self-assured all her life, but as a newlywed, intimacy made her uncharacteristically shy; it’s only now, with time and comfort, that she’s learned to see it plainly. And, as much as she hates remembering that the relevant conversation ever occurred, she knows now that Katara was right all those years ago. 

This glow between them - teasing, lighthearted, tender, _hungry,_ closeness both physical and emotional, laughing together and kissing until they’re out of breath \- really _is_ the fun part of marriage. 

“Right.” He swallows hard. “Well, I’d still hardly call you a tease.” 

“Oh, no, you’re right.” This is another thing Hina’s learned to accept: she’s always going to be a little restrained, even though her apprehension has ebbed away. It’s in her nature, moderation, and she’s wary of too much of a good thing; she and Aang will never be Zuko and Katara, unable to keep their hands off of each other. No, they’re something altogether softer and more careful but no less comforting: their love is the gentle warmth of a fireplace, not the scorching heat of a building burning to the ground (like  _ some  _ people whose facial sparring Hina would really rather not walk in on as often as she does). So moments like these are unusual, few and far between. 

But when they arrive, they’re something else. 

“...but I have my moments,” Hina finishes coyly. 

“That you do,” he says, meeting her eyes again and then her lips. Hina barely notices the footsteps outside ( _ I always stay in character,  _ she jokes later) until garish, unwelcome  _ light  _ and  _ cold  _ flood the dark, warm closet and wife-mode takes a backseat to Spymistress-mode. She doesn’t break the kiss - this was the plan, after all - but her hands come up to his cheeks, covering as much of Aang’s face as she can, and he quickly copies the motion. 

The security guard who’d come to see what exactly was going on takes one look at them, mutters something about how he ‘should probably report this,’ and slams the door shut. 

And when the kiss finally breaks, they laugh and laugh and  _ laugh.  _

“‘I always stay in character,’ huh?” Aang teases as soon as they’ve both caught their breath. 

Hina grins wolfishly and the sounds of guests stampeding into the hall at the party’s end float muffled through the door. “Always, little Avatar.” 

  
  



	9. 108 AG-130 AG: Lifelong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tale of Yuna Oyama and Prince Ryuji of the Fire Nation is one twenty years in the making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we get to explore those kiddos I keep alluding to! To refresh your memory on who's who here: 
> 
> Hina and Aang's children:  
> -Yuna - born 107 AG, Airbender  
> -Yangchen - born 109 AG, Earthbender  
> -Gyatso - born 111 AG, Firebender 
> 
> Zuko and Katara's children:  
> -Izumi - born 104 AG, Firebender  
> -Kya - born 105 AG, Waterbender  
> -Ryuji - born 107 AG, Waterbender  
> -Sakari - born 109 AG, nonbender  
> -Sana - born 111 AG, nonbender 
> 
> This is Yuna and Ryuji's story.

**107 AG**

Hina Oyama has run countless near-fatal missions, been in peril a million times over. She's no stranger to fear. But she has never been as terrified in her _life_ as she is when the midwife places her daughter in her arms for the first time. 

She is tiny and fragile and a mystery to Hina, who'd never have thought she'd be a mother as little as three years ago, and though she feels a stirring of what she realizes has to be love when her daughter's eyes flutter open and follow her every movement, she also feels a new kind of terror. Here is a being entirely reliant upon her, gazing with all the trust in the world at a mother with no _clue_ what she's doing. 

"Yuna," she says before anyone can even ask what the Spymistress' daughter is to be named, because that is the one thing she _is_ sure about. Yuna, the person Hina wanted to become more than anything in the world.

She is not sure if she has lived up to the ideals that defined and ended Yuna Oyama's life, but she feels, alongside her terror, inexplicable confidence that her daughter will. 

"For your mother?" Aang asks through tears, one arm around her shoulders. She nods, leaning back into him as if remembering how exhausted she's supposed to be. 

"For my mother," she tells him, and Yuna's gray eyes lock on hers.

* * *

"I changed my mind." 

Katara's voice is hoarse and low with exhaustion but Zuko still bolts upright from the chair where he's fallen asleep, one arm slung protectively across her and his head in her lap, at the sound of her voice. "What?" he mutters, shaking the sleep from his foggy brain as thoroughly as he can. 

"I changed my mind," she says, her eyes not leaving their son's face for a second. Two girls in and they've finally got a boy - she smiles at the thought. "About his name." 

"Oh." Zuko visibly relaxes, relieved that something's not wrong when every nerve in his body had been on end when he'd heard her voice. Though he's exhausted, too, he's pulled to her as if by gravity, rising to sit on the bed beside her and wrapping his arms around her as gently as he can. She gratefully reclines against his chest. "What would you like to name him, then?" 

"I know you didn't seem to care for it when I brought it up last time," she tells him, "but I want to call him Ryuji."

"Ryuji," Zuko says, trying it on for size. "No, I like that." He smiles, reaching out and letting Ryuji wrap his tiny hand around his finger. "Any reason you picked it?" 

"Get this." Katara smiles sleepily. "I looked into it after we found it in that book of past Fire Lords and you know what it means?" 

"Hm?" he asks, too starry-eyed right now to wonder. 

"'Dragon ruler.'” 

“That’s…” Zuko grins. “That’s _perfect.”_

“Watch as he turns out to be a Waterbender.” Katara kisses Ryuji’s forehead and pulls away with an awestruck smile. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.”

(She is right, a few years down the line, but he remains, as always, Prince Ryuji of the Fire Nation.)

* * *

**111 AG**

Yuna is apprehensive about the tiny, squishy creature that’s invaded her life from the very instant she lays eyes on it. It is loud and wrinkly and really not very nice to look at at all, and it makes Mama cry. There aren’t a lot of things that make Mama cry and Yuna has learned that she does not like them.

So she does not like the thing everyone refers to as her baby sister. _Yangchen –_ what a big word for a thing so tiny. She doesn’t like it.

She _does_ like her big siblings, though. Princess Izumi is a little scary but Princess Kya is the most fun to play with – she doesn’t see the way her parents chuckle at the fact that she doesn’t seem to realize that she and the Princesses aren’t related, growing up in the palace together as they have – and the third one, Prince Ryuji, is her favorite one of all. 

Ryuji’s just her age – four, now – and he’s quiet, like her. Kya’s fun but she talks too much, so she likes that she can just sit with Ryuji and not say or do anything. And he likes moon peaches, like she does, and when her parents are out of town he’ll tell his mother to read them stories before bed because he knows it makes Yuna sad when her parents go away. She loves those nights; she gets to snuggle up with them and hear stories about spirits and dragons and princesses, and though she’s nothing like Mama, Yuna _adores_ Auntie Katara. She’s kind and she always fixes Yuna’s scrapes and does voices for the different characters in the stories she reads them, and she’s so _pretty,_ not to mention she smells like flowers.

She hasn’t seen her in a while, not since Ryuji got a tiny, squishy creature of his own. He actually _likes_ his, which baffles Yuna to no end, but she’s not fond of it. Ryuji keeps trying to get her to hold it, which is terrifying, and Auntie Katara’s been in bed for weeks and she’s too tired to tell stories and everyone always walks around with worried expressions that Yuna doesn’t understand, whispering big words that don’t make any sense. She hears about “complications” and “blood loss” and she doesn’t know what anyone’s talking about, but she’s scared, and so is Ryuji. His big sisters are so sad that they don’t even try to get Yuna to play with them anymore and Uncle Zuko (Mama never stops telling her to call him _Your Majesty_ but he always waves it off and says he prefers “Uncle Zuko,” anyway) looks like he saw a ghost every time she sees him.

It’s all so scary and she wishes she could make it all go away, but she can’t, so she snuggles deeper under the blankets and lifts them up so Ryuji can snuggle in and tries her best to retell the story of the Painted Lady as best she remembers it.

She gets things wrong but he falls asleep before she’s done, and he doesn’t look so scared when he’s asleep. So she puts her arms around him and drifts off, too.

* * *

**113 AG**

Ryuji’s six when he finds out he’s a Waterbender and he’s not even mad that he isn’t a Firebender like Izumi, even though people seem to think he should be.

After all, this means he can get back at Kya, whose bending showed up four years ago and who’s _annoyingly_ good at it already, when she splashes him. Kya’s fun but she’s mean, and she discovered early on that she could make him cry faster than she could blink if she got his clothes wet. But now he can splash her right back, _and_ his best friend Yuna can dry him off with her Airbending. (She’s tried telling Kya to knock it off but it never works.) It’s a foolproof system.

Besides, he likes training with Mom. Kya calls him a “mama’s boy” but he doesn’t really care; he loves her and he loves learning to bend his element with her. It seems like an ideal scenario, really. Even Yuna says it’s cool and she’s smart, so he figures she must be right.

(Personally, he thinks Yuna’s Airbending is even cooler, but he’d never admit it. Not when they argue over whose bending is best almost every _day.)_

* * *

**120 AG**

Yuna has a Problem.

Well, actually, Yuna has _many_ problems. Yangchen is being a pain again, as always, and she’s in trouble for writing Kya’s penmanship exercises for her (what was she _supposed_ to do? The girl’s handwriting is an atrocity!), and if she hears _one more person_ start spouting off about how it’s her ‘destiny’ as the second-to-last Airbender to revive an entire _culture –_ no pressure, she’s _thirteen,_ and she thinks she gets how her dad felt at her age now – she’s going to airbend that unlucky individual out a window.

But none of those problems are the one at hand right now.

Yuna’s always thought of herself as part of a single huge family; though she only has two siblings, she’s always felt like she had seven. The Princesses have always felt like sisters to her, and, growing up in the palace with their parents as much as her own, she’s always been one-eighth of a loud, cozy, entirely oversized brood. Those inclined to show affection are easily affectionate with each other; touch and affirmation are common commodities exchanged freely among the group as much as barbs (Kya’s tried to convince her youngest sister Sana that she was an accident countless times), pranks (Yangchen’s ill-used Earthbending wreaks no end of havoc), and sometimes all-out physical attacks (Sakari will fight _anyone,_ for _any_ reason, _anytime)_.

But as they’ve grown, the way they relate to each other has changed, and Yuna finds herself realizing, lying awake at night with a half-burnt candle on her nightstand as she tries to focus on the book she’s reading, that touch is _awkward_ now.

Well, not always. She and her little brother Gyatso and the two younger Princesses and sometimes even Izumi hug all the time. But where it matters – with _Ryuji…_

Hugging feels _weird_ now. She can’t snuggle up next to him under the blankets on a rainy day anymore without feeling flushed and awkward and wanting to get away and move closer at the same time, and it’s _incredibly_ distressing. He is her best friend and she loves him more than anything, and she hates things coming between them. She’s so worried she actually asks _Izumi –_ scary Izumi, who’s even more serious than she is and just as smart and more than a little intimidating – what to do.

Izumi rolls her eyes and tells her she has a crush.

* * *

**122 AG**

There’s a party tonight, and its guest of honor is missing.

Ryuji notices right away and, not wanting to cause an uproar, he doesn’t say anything when he notices that Yuna’s left the reception thrown in honor of her tattoo ceremony. He’s not all that surprised – she’d looked like she was off all day – but he still hadn’t expected her to just _disappear,_ not on what’s supposed to be the best day of her life.

But, then, he knows it isn’t, really.

She’s proud to be an Airbender, he knows that; he also knows that she is hardworking and talented and has done her best to learn everything she can. She understands her responsibility as one of the last of her kind and she wants to live up to it, but she’s also _fifteen_ and all she really wants to do is read and study and spend time with her siblings, and she has a thin skin, and it’s all just _too much._ It isn’t fair, the weight of an entire nation resting on the shoulders of a girl the size of a toothpick, and Ryuji would do anything to help her carry it, but in the end, he can’t.

But he _can_ be there for him when she needs him, and he’s pretty sure she does now.

As soon as he’s made his escape, Ryuji makes a break for the deserted back garden. She comes back here to think sometimes and it’s as good a place to look for her as any; sure enough, she’s sitting on the stone bench when he arrives, her shoulders shaking and her hood pulled over her head.

“Yuna?” he asks cautiously as he approaches, not wanting to startle her.

“I hate this,” she immediately blurts out. “I hate this _so much.”_

“Hate what?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure he knows.

  
“The pressure,” she sniffles. “All the people who think my bending is their business.” She pauses to breathe. “And these stupid tattoos.”

“Your tattoos?” _That_ hadn’t been what Ryuji expected.

She nods and he sits down beside her, taking her hand even though he knows it’s a bad idea because it seems right in the moment. “It’s stupid,” she deflects. “But I hate them.”

“Why?”

Yuna finally looks up at him and he’s taken-aback to find her face red and puffy with what must’ve been hours of crying. Almost instinctively, he brushes the thumb of his free hand across her cheek, catching a falling tear. His heart is pounding but he leaves his hand there, almost unable to believe how _bold_ this all is, and she doesn’t pull away.

  
“I miss my hair,” she says simply, eyes cast down. “I know, I _know._ It’s _tradition,_ and it’s important that I do it, but…” her chin begins to tremble and she pulls down her hood to demonstrate: her head’s bald now save for the blue arrow running across its top and down her forehead. She looks different, but…the gentle grey of her eyes is still there, and so is the sweet roundness of her face, and Ryuji still blushes under her gaze. “It was _pretty._ I _liked_ my hair and now it’s gone and I feel like a freak.”

“You’re still pretty!” he stammers, too preoccupied with comforting her to realize just how monumentally he’s dropping hints right now. “Even without it. And it’s gonna grow back, don’t worry! And if anyone says anything, I’ll…I’ll…”

  
Yuna looks almost amused when she looks up at him again. “You’ll what?”

“Um…”

Ryuji did not think this through.

She puts her hand on his arm. “It’s okay, Ryu,” she tells him, smiling shyly. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“But I _want_ to, Yuna.” His arm feels like it’s on fire where she’s touching it but he rather valiantly ignores the sensation. “You’re my best friend. If anyone messes with you, I’m gonna mess back.”

“Good luck with that,” she teases, her face brightening. He counts that as a victory and the barely-there kiss she plants on his left cheek as an exponentially greater one.

* * *

**124 AG**

“University?” Yuna squawks. “In _Ba Sing Se?_ Why would you want to go to _Ba Sing Se?”_

“Yuna!” Ryuji looks pained at her indignation. “Don’t you get it? I _need_ to get out of here. Go somewhere where I’m just Ryuji and not the useless third-born prince whose only job is to be alive in case something happens to my sisters and-“

“Ryuji, you _idiot…”_

_“What?”_

Yuna’s done holding back and she’s done being selfless and she’s done going with the flow, because it’s been _four years_ of fighting off her feelings and she’s exhausted. Everything she has wants to snap like a frail branch in a gale because she _cannot_ lose the person she loves more than anyone to the University of Ba Sing Se, no matter how much he needs it-

“I can’t lose you!” she throws up her hands, not even trying to conceal her emotions anymore. “And I know you’re going to go anyway, and I’ll have to be happy for you because you’re finding your way in the world, but it’s going to _kill me.”_ She starts to pace, her breathing shallow. “You’re the one thing I could always count on. You were my _person._ You know me better than I know myself and I’ve never even known what life would be like without you and you’re my _best friend_ and if you left, I don’t know what I’d do with myself, but it’s not my place to ask you to stay, and-“

“Then ask me.” Ryuji’s eyes are huge and he’s standing in front of her now. He takes her hands to get her to stop moving and meets her eyes imploringly. “Ask me to stay and I’ll do it without question.”

“I can’t,” Yuna chokes. “I can’t stop you from finding whatever it is you want out there.”

“But you want to?”

She nods, biting back bile. “I want to ask you to stay, Ryuji, believe me. But it would be _wrong.”_

“No, Yuna, it _wouldn’t.”_ He squeezes her hands imploringly. “I want you to be happy and if you’d be miserable without me-“

“No!” Yuna pulls away, folding her hands behind her back. “Ryuji, this isn’t about me. It’s just _not.”_

“Yuna, it’s _always_ about you,” he says, and the look on his face is nothing short of desperate because she _still_ doesn’t seem to get it.

And then he’s surging forwards to kiss her and Yuna’s so shocked she almost falls into a China cabinet. He catches her before she can hit the glass encasing the porcelain dishware inside and pulls away sheepishly, his face lined with regret but his arms still around her waist.

Heat blooms in Yuna’s heart and her stomach and her _everything,_ then, because the kiss was unexpected and messy but nothing’s felt so _right_ in a long time and before she knows it she’s grabbing Ryuji’s collar and pulling him back in.

It’s amazing how much clarity one can find in twenty seconds when properly motivated and Yuna’s made up her mind by the time they break the kiss.

“Go to Ba Sing Se,” she tells Ryuji, her hands pressed to his chest and her forehead resting against his.

“Yuna, I can’t…”

“Yes, you can.” She bites her lip and prays this decision won’t be the wrong one. “Because I’m coming with you.”

* * *

**128 AG**

Ryuji has tried and tried and _tried_ to keep his relationship with Yuna a secret but he _can’t,_ and within an hour of his arrival in Caldera City after graduation, Izumi and Kya corner him.

“I saw this coming,” Izumi says disinterestedly, picking at her cuticles. “But what I want to know is _when_ and _how.”_

“And what exactly you intend to do about the fact that she’s supposed to rebuild the Air Nomads or whatever,” Kya adds.

“And why you won’t just _tell_ us when you _know_ I can sense you idiots making out in corners from down the hall,” Yangchen cuts in, poking her head in the door.

(Ryuji curses the day her Earthbending teacher, an old friend of their parents’ with as great a penchant for chaos as Yangchen herself, decided she needed to learn seismic sensing.)

He stammers out half-answers to their questions before he runs off because he’d told Yuna he’d meet her in the back garden and he’s running late now, feeling sixteen again instead of twenty-one. But the interrogation _does_ have one benefit: it’s a thousand times easier to walk into his parents’ study and announce that he intends to relinquish his place in line for the throne after that.

* * *

“Mom, please.”

Yuna stops outside the door to Katara’s study when she hears Izumi’s voice; normally she wouldn’t stop, but the Crown Princess, normally so collected, sounds distressed, and she’s equal parts worried and curious as to why.

“I can’t let him do this, honey,” Katara sighs, and Yuna hears a murmur of assent from Zuko as well. Her stomach drops – this has to be about Ryuji.

_Her_ Ryuji. Now she has no choice but to stay.

“Mom, what would you have done if someone told you that you couldn’t be with dad?” Izumi challenges. “Ignored them, right?”

“Well…”

“And that’s exactly what Ryu’s going to do if you don’t let him go.”

“Yuna has a duty to her people and we can’t let him get in the way of that,” Zuko sighs. “Believe me, Izumi, I want to, but I can’t ignore the fact that Yuna is the last hope of the Air Nomads.”

“Which is exactly why Ryuji wants to step down!” Izumi protests. “He wants to _help_ her rebuild, and _I_ say he should be able to.”

“Our predecessors were the sole reason that Yuna _has_ this responsibility, Zumi,” Zuko tells her. “A Prince of the Fire Nation marrying one of the last known Airbenders-“

“Who said anything about marriage?”

“It’s Ryuji, darling,” Katara points out. “You know he’s thinking of it.”

The thought makes Yuna’s heart feel like it’s soaring but she forces it back down to earth, realizing that Zuko has a point. Ryuji is her best friend and her beloved but all the world will see when they look at the two is the union of descendants of wrongdoer and victim, even generations removed.

“Okay, fine, he is.” Izumi’s voice is rising again. “But Mom, Dad…he _loves_ her. You, of all people, should understand why that is what matters here. He’s not the Crown Prince, he’s not going to stop her from rebuilding the Air Nomads, and they’ll be _happy._ Don’t think about what people would say, _please._ Because when did that ever stop you two?”

  
Izumi is audibly out of breath when she finishes and Yuna’s never been more grateful for her horde of sisters than she is right now.

* * *

**129 AD**

_Mom + Dad,_

_I know this is going to come as a shock and you might be upset about it for a while, but I’m doing what I need to do. Yuna and I have been thinking about what you said and realized that our first priority needs to be the Air Nomads. There have to be Airbenders out there in hiding – we’re going to find them. Don’t worry about us._

_Love,_

_Ryuji_

_P.S. forgot to mention that we also kind of eloped._

_Sorry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was originally supposed to be the basis of a sequel about their relationship and the search for hidden/lost Airbenders, but I didn't think I had enough of an audience to make that worthwhile, so I kind of scrapped it.


	10. ? AG: Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five times Hina Oyama got some much needed snuggles and the one time she gave them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This used to be the Aang death oneshot. Now it’s fluff. Oops.

** I **

She wakes to warmth and softness and she turns, murmuring contentedly, to find-

Oh. 

“Hey,” Aang says, his voice soft as he lifts one of the arms that’s settled around her waist to brush her hair out of her eyes. “Good nap?”

“Mm?” she mutters blearily. “Did I…did I fall asleep on you?”

  
Aang smiles the kind of smile that crinkles his nose. “Sure did.”

“Oh, Agni,” Hina murmurs, horrified, and she tries to extract herself from her boyfriend’s arms before she realizes that no, she really doesn’t want that. She flops back down, and he cradles her head, kissing her hair. “I’m sorry…if anyone saw-“

“It’s okay, Hina. No one saw us.” Hina wishes she could see his face, for she’s sure that the tenderness in his voice is in his eyes now, too. “Well. Zuko did walk in a few minutes ago, but-“

“My boss saw me sleeping in your lap?”

“He left as soon as he realized you were asleep,” Aang reassures her. “He didn’t want to wake you.”

“But he saw us?”

“Hina, love, it’s all right.” He runs his fingers through her hair and she leans into his touch almost unknowingly. “You’re my girl. You get to do that if you want to.”

“’s embarrassing,” Hina protests weakly, burying her face in his shirt so she won’t be caught blushing at the sweet nickname. “’m supposed to be professional.” 

“Not when you’re with me, you’re not.” He’s teasing, but the kiss he presses to her forehead is unmistakably earnest. “It’s okay to let down my guard. I’ve got you.”

Hina lets out a tiny, contented sigh as she rests her head again and lets Aang hold her, murmuring nonsense as she drifts off again.

“Love you,” she says, and she barely has time to hear his “love you too” before she lets sleep claim her.

** II  **

“You’re sulking.”

Hina turns to her boss-turned-best friend-turned honorary little brother, expecting a response. She doesn’t get one, though: he simply sits there, arms crossed, head bowed, sulking the night away.

“Is this still about Katara?” Hina asks.

“Is it a crime to miss my wife?” Zuko finally turns, though he’s only trying to glare at her. “Agni. Have some sympathy.”

“I haven’t seen Aang in three months, either,” Hina points out, “and I’m not sulking.”

“You guys are used to being apart,” Zuko counters. “Me and Katara aren’t.”

“I know you miss her,” Hina says, more gently this time. “I mean, I miss Aang just as much. But…only one more week.”

One more week until they can leave this Agni-forsaken city of ice and return to the Fire Nation, where the warmth of the weather and their loved ones alike will be waiting to thaw them out. Katara and the children have been in the South Pole for a few weeks now, and Zuko’s been restless and peevish since they left; Hina knows how much he’s relying on the thought of seeing them to get him through this awful week in the North Pole.

“Unbearable,” Zuko groans, leaning his head against Hina’s shoulder.

“Agreed,” Hina finally admits, because she’s only been married six months and she doesn’t appreciate that three of them have been spent without her husband. She wraps her arm around her best friend’s waist, and she sighs contentedly at the warmth radiating from his core as he leans into her side.

“At least I have you,” Zuko says, his exhaustion beginning to show, and Hina nods in agreement.

“Always, Boss.”

“Not boss right now,” Zuko corrects her. “I can’t be snuggling with my employees because I’m sad.”

“No, you can’t,” Hina agrees.

  
She turns and wraps both arms around his waist, just to prove a point.

** III **

“I made you some tea, darling-“

“Don’t want tea,” Hina groans, her eyes fluttering open.

“…oh.” Aang sets the tea down on their nightstand and takes a seat on the bed next to her. “Well, I can always reheat it if you’d like it later.”

“’kay,” Hina murmurs, already drifting off again. She’s been exhausted often lately in these last weeks of her third trimester,but her sleepiness still never fails to melt Aang’s heart. “C’mere, will you?”

“Of course.”

She reaches for him, and he lies down beside her on top of the covers. It’s not close enough, though, and she tugs on the comforter to let him know what she means. Powerless to resist, Aang crawls beneath the sheets and approaches. He’s unsure what she wants, but he figures that it’s touch she’s looking for, so he reaches for Hina’s hand.

She proceeds to tug his arm until his entire body is pressed against her side.

“You never wanna snuggle anymore,” Hina pouts. “Why don’t you wanna snuggle?”   
  
“You…wanted that?” Aang’s face flushes. “I thought you wanted me to stay away from you!”

“What?” Hina’s eyes snap open and they’re wide with alarm only seconds later. “Why?” 

“Because…” Aang starts sheepishly. “Because. Remember that fight we had a few weeks ago?”

“Which one?”

“You told me to, um. Never touch you again.”

“Oh, Aang.” Hina looks like she’s trying not to laugh. “Didn’t you know what that meant?”

  
“Um…I thought it meant not to touch you.”

“I was upset and I told you not to touch me-touch me because I was utterly convinced that I would never been pregnant again.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t mean not to touch me at all! Agni, do you have any idea how many times I wanted to cuddle and you just…wouldn’t?”

That is all Aang needs to hear, and he pulls her into his arms, his hands resting against her stomach as he presses kisses to every bare surface of her face, neck, and shoulders that he can find. “I’m so sorry, Hina,” he murmurs between kisses. “I didn’t know you wanted that and-“

“Shhh.” Hina smiles. “If anything, it’s adorable that your brain went there.”

“Really?”

  
“Mmhm.” Hina nods, sleepy again. “But now ‘m sore and I just wanna be snuggled.” She turns her gaze on him. “With that fire thing you can do where you make me warm, ‘cause my back hurts?”

“Anything for my girl,” he murmurs, and he obeys.

** IV  **

Yangchen does not like to be held.

This unfortunate turn of events comes to light the hard way in the first few weeks of her life. When she was born, snuggled up against Hina’s chest, she looked the part of the perfect baby: she was positively silent, sleeping soundly in her mother’s arms. But the moment Katara took her back to wash her, or handed her to her father?

Screaming bloody murder. 

It’s the same way with everyone. Katara can calm her better than most, but she still winds up on the receiving end of Yangchen’s tantrums whenever she holds her. (She hasn’t let that stop her from trying to win the trust of her best friends’ daughter, but she’s not getting anywhere.) Zuko’s attempts to bond with Yangchen end in abject disaster. Even Aang, poor man, cannot get his daughter to settle in his arms the way she does for her mother. Yuna, Izumi, Kya – none of the children have endeared themselves to Yangchen Oyama, either.

Hina, privately, is fine with this, because this baby feels more hers than anything ever has in her life, and if she gets to snuggle with Yangchen because she hates everyone else, well…she counts her lucky stars that she gave birth to a misanthropist. And she intends to take advantage of it: everywhere she goes, no matter who glares, Hina Oyama carries her infant daughter. And when she’s behind closed doors, she’s even more determined to capitalize on this odd bond that she shares with the daughter she loves more than she’d ever thought possible.

“These Northern Water Tribe diplomats are driving your mama crazy, Chennie,” she says one day as she paces the library with Yangchen snuggled up against her shoulder. She bounces a little as she walks, because Yangchen seems to like that, and her heart melts when her eyes – exactly the same shade of green as Hina’s – blink open and meet hers. “Yeah, they are. All they care about is fishing rights! Who wants to sit in a room arguing about fishing rights for hours on end? I wish I were you. Then I could just sleep.”

Yangchen coos, reaching out her hand to grab a fistful of her mother’s hair.

  
“You are so smart, Yangchen! That’s exactly what these negotiations feel like,” Hina chuckles, nuzzling her cheek against Yangchen’s downy head. Her eyes flutter shut for a moment as she tries to impress this feeling, and the overwhelming affection she feels for her daughter, into her memory. “Honestly, why should I even be there? I’m the Spymistress, not the foreign minister!”

Yangchen doesn’t reply and Hina kisses the top of her head, walking in silence for a moment. “You’re so much easier than they are.”

The Hina Oyama of five years ago would’ve run screaming at the idea that she’d ever find cuddling with a baby to be preferable to diplomatic negotiations, but that Hina had never known what it felt like to have a baby all her own, one who hated the entire world but loved her mother and only slept well in her arms.

  
That Hina didn’t know what she was missing.

** V **

“Mama?”

“Yuna?” Hina blinks, raising her head from the pillow at the sound of her daughter’s voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Yuna says. “We just wanna sleep here.”

“We?”

When her vision clears she finds both of her daughters standing at the foot of her bed. Yuna holds Yangchen’s hand, and they both gaze up at their mother, and then at the bassinet next to her bed.

“Okay,” Hina sighs, because it is harder to sleep when Aang is gone and the bed is empty. She lifts the covers, and her daughters scramble to crawl beneath them, snuggling against each of Hina’s sides. Yangchen, aged three, clings to her mother’s arm for dear life, and Yuna, aged five, rests her head on Hina’s shoulder, sighing contentedly in her half-sleep when Hina reaches over and ruffles her hair.

“Wha’bout Gyatso?” Yangchen says after a moment, just as Hina’s about to fall asleep again.

“Chennie…”

“We need Gyatso!” Yangchen insists, and Hina knows she’s not going to be getting much sleep until she brings her year-old son into their cuddle pile, so she sighs and reaches over to the bassinet. Gyatso squirms sleepily but settles against her shoulder, and the girls take their places on each side of their mother once again.

“Thanks, Mama,” Yuna murmurs before she drops back off into sleep.

She falls asleep like that, too, one arm on Gyatso’s back and the other around Yangchen. Yuna’s cheek rests against her shoulder, and Yangchen still clings to her arm.

She sleeps better than she has in weeks that night.

+ **I**

“This is ridiculous.”

“I agree.” Hina plops down on the bed beside her husband, holding a bowl of egg drop soup. “But I have to say that I’m really gonna enjoy being able to say that I spoon-fed the Avatar.”

“Gaaah,” Aang groans, pushing the bowl away. “I have the flu, not the…the…” Aang searches for words. “The death.” 

“No, you certainly don’t have The Death.” Hina sets the bowl aside. “But you’re sick and overworked and you need rest.”

“Can’t-“

“Can,” Hina interrupts. “And will.”

  
“Fine, then,” Aang huffs, holding out his arms. “Come snuggle.”

“Are you trying to infect me?”

“No, I’m trying to snuggle with you.” His smile is a little delirious, a lot dopey, and she can’t help but melt, even though he’s being absolutely ridiculous right now. “You’re small. Like snuggling a stuffed animal.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a fever?”

“What fever?”

Hina presses the back of her hand to his forehead and winces. “Aang, you’re burning up.”

“Oh?”

“Worse than I realized,” Hina mutters, pushing his shoulders down so he’ll be forced to lie flat. “You’re not leaving this room until your fever breaks, you hear me?”

  
“But-“

“You’re not. No buts.”

“Then you should stay,” he says with that half-delirious smile.

“Fine,” Hina acquiesces, and she lies down beside him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest. “But if I get sick…”

“Mm. Nice,” he mutters. “Small.”

Hina shakes her head, exasperated, but her heart melts all the same.

“Idiot,” she mutters, then kisses his cheek.

“Your idiot,” he replies.

“Even delirious, you’re a sap.”

“You still love me,” he replies.

“Well…that I do.”


	11. 109 AG: Stolen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has no plot. How do you summarize a thing with no plot? ZUTARA FLUFF, THAT IS ALL.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so completely shameless. I was half asleep when I wrote it so-

“Darling, come here.” Katara reaches her arm out lazily, letting her eyes flutter shut as she flops back against the pillows. Here, the blue satin of her favorite robe whispering against her skin and the red of their bedclothes, she feels as spoiled as she had when she’d first visited the Fire Nation, shocked at the luxury of the quarters she’d been put up in.

  
  


Of course, her circumstances have changed since then; now her husband joins her, and vague thoughts of the children her mother-in-law is watching for the night drift through her mind as Zuko snuggles in. “You called for me?” he asks, moving so he can get a better look at her. He’s smiling to himself, a little mischief and what has to be the sum total of all possible affection on his face. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“I just like you,” she says impishly, grabbing hold of him like he’s a stuffed toy and hanging on tight. He can’t help but laugh, though he loves it - loves her playful side, loves being in her arms, loves it when she holds him close. 

“Hm. Well, luckily for you, I like you even more.” 

“Mmm...nope.” She shakes her head. “No you don’t.” 

“Oh, I know I do.” He frees one of his hands so he can run his fingers through her hair, soft and thick and let loose for the night. 

“Oh?” Katara’s eyes widen innocently but he knows the look is anything but innocent. “And how do you know that?” 

This time, he props himself up, one hand on either side of her body, hemming her in. He looks down at her, then, with the adoring heat that he reserves for her - that he’s  _ always  _ reserved for her and only for her - and she reaches up, starry-eyed, to tuck a lock of his hair behind his ear, her hand drifting down after she’s done to cup his cheek. He freezes, unaware of anything but the cool of her palm against his cheek, and the soft smile on her face, because he knows what’s coming. 

They’ve been married five years, they have three children, they’ve weathered conspiracies and coup attempts and bullheaded councilmen and so many sleepless nights - and somehow he still forgets to remember that there is a world outside of her arms when she kisses him. 

“I love you,” he murmurs against her cheek when they break the kiss, unwilling to be too far from her. She cradles him to her chest and he relishes the feeling of sinking against the soft contours of her body, ones he knows and loves so well, until he can hardly tell where he ends and she begins. There’s a quiet desperation in the moment; perhaps because they know it’s stolen - stolen from children and a country who need them. 

They cannot regret it, though. They did not marry so that they would be Fire Lord and Fire Lady, nor mother and father, but so that they’d be Zuko and Katara. They  _ need  _ this moment, need to be themselves together. So he clings to his wife and she holds him just as close, and in the quiet of the bedchamber, something that’s been tense and taut in his heart and mind for the entirety of the week it’s been since they’ve had a spare moment together goes limp. 

“I love you too, Zuko,” Katara says, shifting a little so that he can rest in her lap. So often she feels like he’s the one holding and pampering and comforting her, and she’s always felt guilty for that; it’s her turn to repay the favor. She’s feeling as much fondness for the man in her arms right now as she ever has, and she presses her lips to his hairline. He lets out a contented sigh and sinks, impossibly, further into her, his body as loose as if he’s preparing to sleep. “I love you more than life itself, you know that?” 

Zuko is so close to sleep now, and she’s almost disappointed - she’d had a slightly different plan for this night when she’d convinced Ursa to watch their children - but she can’t stop her heart from swelling in her chest at the way he rests in her so trustingly. “Say it again?” he asks sleepily. “I like to hear that.”

That, Katara can do. “I love how stupidly loyal you are,” she says, rhythmically stroking his hair the way she knows he loves it. “And how convicted, and passionate, and brave you are.” She smiles to herself, knowing he can’t see it. “I love your eyes, your cheekbones-“

“What is it with you and my cheekbones?” Zuko chuckles, nevertheless nuzzling at her shoulder like a cat. 

“They’re simply perfect, husband.” She leans over to kiss each one as if to demonstrate. “And I love your hair, and your hands, and your  _ shoulders…”  _ she smirks, for she does love his shoulders. “And, just...all of you. There isn’t an inch of your body that I don’t love.” 

“Mm?” he mutters, turning his face where his cheek rests, somewhere in the vicinity of her collarbone, so that it’s pushed against the flushed skin of her shoulder. 

“Of course, love,” Katara tells him, stroking the line of his forearm now instead of his hair. “And I love your tenderness, and the way you’d always melt when you were holding our babies and they’d snuggle against your shoulder, and…” she ducks her fingers under his chin now, lifting it up so she can really look at him. “And I love the way you hold me like I’m something precious, and-“

He sits up and turns so that he’s sitting beside her, crossing his legs and swiftly pulling her into his lap; she knows exactly how to perch there, her legs winding around his waist and her hands interlocked behind his neck. Tiredness forgotten, his hands find her waist and she can feel their heat through the thin fabric, her breath catching. 

“You  _ are,  _ my love.”

She presses her forehead to his, lips slightly parted, heart racing.  _ Please, tell me this is going where I think it is,  _ she couldn’t help but think. “Am I?” 

Zuko didn’t reply with words at first, his lips too occupied in trailing kisses along the line of her shoulder to speak. When he did, though, his eyes were soft, and his voice softer. “ _ Yes,  _ Katara,” he says too ardently to be anything but sincere. “ _ Yes.  _ You’re...you’re my whole world.”

“That might not be good for this country,” she teases, planting a kiss to his shoulder. 

“Maybe not my whole world, but the better part of it,” he says, a little shy. “You and our children.” 

Her heart melts at the way he says those words and, the heat building in her stomach forgotten in the simple warmth of plain  _ affection,  _ she presses her lips to the tip of his nose. “Mine, too,” she agrees. 

“Wait, no, I wasn’t done yet.” His hands shift to her back now, splayed out to let them touch as much of her as they can at one time. “I...I love…” he’s so starry-eyes that he looks like he might cry, and, though she’s a little jarred at how quick the change in his mood has been. His hands stay on her back but she moves hers so she can hold him, letting his head rest against her shoulder. “I…”

“Hey, Zuko, it’s all right if you can’t say it,” she says, simply holding him. “I don’t expect you to.” 

“But you-“

“Don’t, Zuko.” She lets him pull back so she can meet his eyes. “For  _ years,  _ you were willing to wait for me and chase me when I ran away from my feelings and you never thought anything of it, even when I was being stupid and I broke your heart.” Now she’s the one who’s close to crying. “And I couldn’t  _ possibly  _ repay that debt. So at least let me try.” She tries to reach up to wipe her eyes, but Zuko catches her wrist before she can and sets her hand back in her lap, brushing his thumb across her cheek to catch her falling tears. 

“You already  _ have  _ repaid it, my love,” he murmurs, pressing his hand to her cheek after he’s finished wiping her tears. 

“Zuko…”

“Shh, let me finish.” He knows what to say the way he didn’t before; then he’d been flustered by the heat of the moment, but this quiet, tender intimacy is easier to make sense of. “You  _ married  _ me, Katara. That’s more than repayment enough, even without the changes we’ve made together and every morning I’ve woken up beside you.” He smiles softly, cupping her cheek. “You gave me a whole lifetime with the woman I love. Isn’t that a thousand times more than enough?” 

A tiny smile cracks her crestfallen expression and it looks to Zuko like the sun bursting through the clouds. “I hope so,” she says, brushing at a few more tears. “I’m really sorry about all of the crying and mood swings and trying to seduce you when you just wanted to sleep-“

Zuko looks slightly horrified that he hadn’t realized that. “You were trying to seduce me?”

She nods. “Why do you think I wore this?” 

“...oh.” His cheeks flush as if this is new to him when, in reality, it happens almost constantly. “ _ Oh.”  _

“Yeah.” She laughs as she presses her palm to his chest, her sadness forgotten. “That  _ was  _ what I was getting at when I asked Ursa to take the kids.” 

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that…” he’s smiling but he trails off. “But we’re tired, and you’re a little bit off, and maybe…” 

“Tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow,” he agrees. 

“Sorry about all of this,” Katara sighs. 

“Stop apol-“

“I always get like this when I’m expecting.” 

“Ogizing...wait, you  _ are?”  _

She laughs, because this has happened too many times now for her to bother with making a grand surprise of it anymore. Besides, the shock on her husband’s face never gets old, and not even the bluntest reveal changes the reaction. “Surprise, I guess?” she laughs, turning to lie on her back against his chest and presses his hands to her stomach. 

Zuko appears to need a moment but she doesn’t mind. 

“...wow,” he manages faintly after he’s had that moment. “Four kids.” 

“Four kids,” Katara repeats. “I was going to tell you later, but…” 

“Now is good.” When he turns her back to face him, Zuko is grinning unabashedly and he kisses her like he had that first time, five years ago. She relaxes against him. 

“Four kids,” she hears him mutter, more dazed than he wants to let on, and she can’t help but laugh. 


	12. 125 AG: Yangchen Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life has never made it easy for Yangchen Oyama to figure out where she fits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost made this its own separate oneshot. I feel as if it's ambitious enough, and different enough from the short, shippy oneshots that make up the rest of this collection, that it deserves its own posting. But then I realized that none of y'all would ever find it if I didn't put it here because no one checks the Aang/OC tag and it's not Zutara, so here it is. 
> 
> This one is heavy. It deals with heavy subjects. It's not supposed to be angst, necessarily (more "realistically gritty slice of life"), but it is DEFINITELY not fluff. It deals with questions of heritage and oppression as well as the typical coming-of-age doubts about identity and figuring out where one fits in. It's got Haang flashbacks but they aren't sweet, fluffy ones (even though I REALLY want to write Zayna's Haang pillow talk headcanons after tormenting poor Hina in this, ouch). It's got a relentless use of flashbacks. 
> 
> But I really wanted to display a side of the Oyama family's story that fluff never could, and I hope that comes through here. 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: mentions of war and genocide, non-explicit violence, one instance of strong/derogatory language, childbirth complications.

**I. Present**

“Are you transporting any fruits or vegetables?”

“Um. No.” Yangchen adjusted the straps of the travel pack that, no matter how lightly she tried to travel, always left her shoulders aching after a while. “No produce.” _Aren’t you supposed to…you know, actually check to make sure I’m not lying?_ She couldn’t help but think, but she was far from complaining about it.

“Good. State your name and intention, please,” the customs agent said tiredly with barely a spare glance upwards.

“Yangchen Oyama,” she said, her voice probably just as exhausted as the customs agent after a long day. “I’m here to study.”

_That_ got the man’s attention. “Oyama? I’ve heard that name.”

“It’s quite common,” Yangchen said, bristling. She wasn’t about to explain herself to a disgruntled customs agent who couldn’t be bothered to look up until he suspected something.

“Hm.” He didn’t look convinced, but he handed Yangchen her ticket and let her board the steamer anyway.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Yangchen entered the swarm of humanity waiting to board. Knees and elbows jabbed her from every angle; she stepped on anonymous feet and they stepped right back on hers; the din in the place was unbearable – but she hadn’t felt more alive in ages. _This_ was where life felt most right, getting from one place to another without a soul around who knew her name or her parentage or a single other thing about her other than the fact that her ever-present glower and muscled frame warned off any questions. She’d grown up in a palace, but sleep never felt more luxurious than it did when she sprawled out on the creaky bed of a steamer’s stateroom; the ocean and the wind and the rocking of the deck beneath her feet invigorated her.

Yangchen didn’t make a habit of smiling overmuch, but she couldn’t fight the grin off her face when she stepped out on deck for the first time, glancing out over the harbor; she wouldn’t see this city again for six months. She let the ever-present smells of mango and wood smoke seep into her clothes, for she always feared she’d forget them if she did not stop to take them in. So much of Yangchen’s life consisted of drifting, forgetting; though she was not exceedingly fond of the city of her birth, this was one part of it that she wouldn’t let go of.

She was jolted from her thoughts by movement at her side, though, and she looked up, on high alert, to find that a grimy, leering man about her father’s age had taken up residence by her side. He wore Earth Kingdom clothes and an unsettling smile.

Yangchen shifted a few inches down the railing, away from the man, but his eyes locked on hers and wouldn’t let go. She wasn’t one to back down from a challenge, usually, but she dropped her eyes now, apprehensive.

“You,” the man said, realizing he didn’t have her attention anymore. “You the one who said her name was Oyama?”

“Um. Yes.” Yangchen knew she couldn’t lie convincingly enough to put him off if he’d overheard her at Customs, so she didn’t even try.

“Hm.” He grunted. “So _this_ is the Avatar’s brat.”

* * *

**II. 105 AG**

_Hina doesn’t know how she’s let this happen after dodging notice so expertly for two weeks, but now she’s backed into a corner, hand on the hilt of her dagger even though she knows it won’t do her any good._

_“Spymistress,” the fruit seller who’d followed her from the market – not, she now realizes, actually a fruit seller – leers. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”_

_Hina’s lips curl into a snarl. Usually she’d flee, play the terrified damsel and drop enough of her cover story to convince him of her innocence, but she’s been tailing Tan Xiao for long enough to know that he isn’t going to be swayed. He’s the only reason the warlords of the house of Cai are holding onto the last vestiges of their power in the south; this one man and his machinations, the unbelievably clever ways he’s consolidated his employer’s power, is perhaps a greater threat to the royal family’s authority than the entire Earth Kingdom combined. He’s allied the house of Cai with the criminal underground, played groups off of each other with expert intuition and a diplomatic savvy that Hina almost envies. The warlord whose service he’s in is practically inept; it’s Tan Xiao who’s held onto his influence._

_And she should’ve known that he was going to catch on._

_“You’re good, Tan Xiao.” Hina rarely indulges herself in this kind of petty argumentation, but she’s exhausted, cornered, and desperate, and she’s too worn-down to resist the urge to throw her weight around. “But you’re running out of luck.”_

_“Oh, am I?” Tan Xiao is enjoying this, teasing her. “You must be losing your touch, Spymistress. I know you know that it’s_ I _who have_ you _walled in.”_

_“Why are you doing this?” she’s breathing hard now, even though she’s barely even moving. “All you’re doing is leaving yourself exposed.”_

_“Hm, excellent deduction, Spymistress.” Tan Xiao picks at his fingernails as if nothing particularly bothersome has happened. “I’m sure you could answer that question yourself, though. Why are you goading me?”_

_“Because I’m really sick of chasing you and I’m done being professional,” she spits, unholstering her dagger; he isn’t even shaken, which makes her heart race with dread._

_“Or because you enjoy battling a worthy adversary,” he says. “I must admit, Spymistress, you have been a formidable-“_

_  
“Save it, Xiao.”_

_“That wouldn’t be any fun, now, would it?” Tan Xiao snarls._

_“You realize that every word out of your mouth is another reason for me to stab you, don’t you?”_

_“You won’t.” He smiles and Hina can’t help but think that it’s the most horrifying twisting of lips imaginable. “Do you want to know why, Spymistress?”_

_“Tell me where Cai Guan is hiding out.”_

_She ignores him, he ignores him in return. “I heard you just got married,” he says. “Congratulations, Spymistress.”_

_“Leave him out of this.” Her blood’s close to boiling now and it takes all she has not to snap and kill him on the spot; she barely cares, right now, if he has information she needs, and she’s got to keep the man alive to get it._

_No one hurts Aang on Hina’s watch. No one even so much as uses him as leverage._

_“You will not kill me,” he says, slow and deliberate so that she cannot miss the meaning of a single word of he’s saying, “because if you did, you’d go home and look your husband in the face knowing that you are no different than the people who murdered his.”_

_Hina shouldn’t be so shocked by that, she knows, but she is and the full force of his words hits her straight in the face._

_He isn’t done. “How do you think he already feels?” Xiao continues. “Knowing that he falls asleep every night beside a woman whose ancestors served the very men who took his people from him?”_

He’s trying to get in your head. Don’t let him, _she tries to tell herself, but her eyes widen and her heart is racing. “You know nothing about my husband,” she sneers, but there’s nothing she can do to stop the his words from making landfall in the soft underbelly of her mind._

_“Please, Spymistress. He’s a bit too visible to ignore.” Tan Xiao sneers. “You know, it’s a shame he chose you, of all people.” He clucks his tongue. “But it’s also advantageous.”_

_“I’d warn you to be careful, Xiao.”_

_“Oh, I’ve no need to be.”_

_“Tell me that again and see what I do to you.”_

_“I have friends in high places, Miss Oyama.” Her stomach twists at the casually insulting address. “And wouldn’t it be a shame if something were to happen to the Avatar?”_

_Every last ounce of self-control she possessed snaps at that and she’s pinning him to the wall of the alleyway, her dagger at his throat. He’s so shocked that he barely resists and she can feel his breath coming in short now._

_  
“Let this be a lesson to you, and everyone who follows,” she hisses, fury painting her words blood-red. “Threaten the Avatar and you pay with your life.”_

_  
It’s the easiest possible decision to drive her blade into flesh._

* * *

**III. Present**

“What does _that_ mean?” Yangchen snapped, about three seconds from throwing the man over the railing.

“So you are.” The man looked more disgusted than she’d thought possible.

“Again, what does that mean?” she laid her hand on the hilt of her sheathed dagger, the one her mother had insisted she carry once she started her Earthbending studies and it became clear that she’d spending months out of every year in Republic City.

“Nothing,” he spat.

“Oh, no, you’re not getting off that easy.” Yangchen’s fingers clenched around the hilt until her knuckles went white. “You’re gonna tell me what you meant by that or you’re gonna get thrown overboard.”

“Don’t you already know?” he sniffed. “What, has no one told you what you are?”

Yangchen’s heart dropped.

_I wish someone could tell me that._ She didn’t know how exactly he’d lit onto the one thing one could absolutely count upon to shake her, but he had and it felt like an open sore.

“I know who I am. I’m an Earthbender,” she said shakily, because it was the one thing she was sure of. “And I’m done having this conversation.”

“What, too afraid to face the truth about what you are?”

“No, but I don’t owe you my attention.”

“I take it you know about the Hundred-Year War.”

She said nothing – didn’t _need_ to.

“And the Air Nomad Genocide.”

Again, she swallowed hard, saying nothing.

“And yet you ask me why your very existence is an abomination.” Yangchen was too shocked to speak but she grabbed his collar, holding him an inch off the ground with trembling hands, and all she knew was white-hot _rage._

“Tell me that again,” she said, as threatening as she knew how. “I _dare_ you to look me in the eyes and tell me that again.”

“You don’t get it,” he spat. “Neither does your idiot Fire Lord, acting as if his predecessors didn’t try to wipe out the Fire Lady’s entire tribe.” He was practically spitting with every word now. “But your father…”

“What about my father?” Yangchen dropped the man back to the deck but didn’t let go of his collar. She’d never felt the closeness to Aang that she did to Hina but she’d tolerate no slight to his character.

“Your father was the last hope of his nation,” the man said, venom and terror fighting for control of the look in his eyes. “And what did he do?” He paused but didn’t give her time to answer. “He could’ve had anyone, and what did he do? He went and married the highest advisor to the man who holds the office that ordered the death of his entire culture!” the man was almost shaking now. “That you were even _born_ shows that nothing’s really changed!”

Yangchen’s eyes blazed. “My father married my mother because he _loved_ her,” she spat, almost unable to believe that she was even say this – it seemed such a stupidly sentimental explanation but it was _true._ There was no other way to justify herself than that: that her parents were equals in every way, that they’d chosen each other for no other reason than devotion. “He _chose_ her, history or not. And you have no _right-“_

“ _He_ had no right to marry that Fire Nation _whore.”_

That was more than Yangchen Oyama could take.

“That is my _mother_ you’re talking about,” shaking with anger, turning before she could be tempted to do something rash, and she ran to her quarters, shoving past anyone in her path without hesitation. But she froze before she was out of the man’s line of sight, turning back. “ _And you’d do best never to forget it.”_

* * *

**IV. 105 AG**

****

_“Hina, we need to talk.”_

_Hina barely even turns at Aang’s voice, too weary to bother. “You’re mad, aren’t you.”_

_“Hina…” he settles beside her on the bed, stroking her slumped shoulders. “Of course I’m not mad. I’m just worried about you.”_

_“You shouldn’t be.”_

_“Zuko told me that you tried to resign, Hina.” He pulls her into his arms without needing to be told that she needs him and she goes totally limp, as if the strength has been sapped from her body. “You would never quit if something weren’t wrong. You love this job.”_

_She lets out a broken sob, her hands fisting in the fabric of his robes as she burrows down under his chin. It’s this position she always returns to in her most vulnerable moments, the one that has always been theirs. “I messed up, Aang,” she sobs. “I never should’ve let that man get to me but…but…”_

_“Hina, what happened?”_

_“He was threatening you,” she says, her voice so small he barely hears it. “And he told me…he told me that…”_

_“Me? What did he say?”_

_A choked-up sob wracks Hina’s body and he holds her tight, running his palms across her trembling shoulders as gently as he knows how. “He…he…he said that…that you hated me for what the Fire Nation did to your people,” she admits, her voice catching on tears every few words. “And that…that it would be a shame if something were to h-happen to you…”_

_Aang’s eyes darken. “Hina, I could never hate you,” he says, his voice as gentle as it can be given the way he wants to snap right now. “I haven’t blamed you for anything the Fire Nation’s done, not ever, and I never will.” He presses his wife’s trembling body to his chest, wishing the love he felt for her were a tangible object, something he could show her to prove it existed as concretely as the clothes on their backs and the bed they were sitting upon. “I love you, Hina, you know that.”_

_“I do,” she says, her voice small. “But I felt so guilty, and…and…”_

_“Darling, you risked your life to free the people of the Earth Kingdom. You might be half-Fire Nation, but you did everything you could to_ not _be like them.” Hina shifts until her legs wrap around his waist; there’s nothing heated in the position, though, and he knows she’s trying to get as close to him as is humanly possible. Hina needs to be reminded that he’s here, sometimes; this is how she does it and he’d never complain. He wraps strong, sinewy arms around her, pulling her in until she goes limp against him. “You’re kind, and selfless, and brave, and_ good, _Hina. You’re not them and I don’t care what anyone says.”_

_“But-“_

_“Hina, there is no ‘but.’ I love you.”_

_“But I killed him.”_

_Their chamber falls silent and Hina’s chin sinks to his shoulder as she begins to cry. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I’m so, so sorry, Aang. I know I should never have let my emotions get the better of me, and you’re probably disgusted that I killed someone for you, and-“_

_“I’m not, Hina, I’m not.” He’s shocked but he can’t bring himself to be disgusted – not when he knows she was cornered, when they’d threatened him and he knows how protective Hina gets. He knows that Hina is good and loving and kind and she doesn’t kill lightly even if he hates the idea that a man’s dead because of him. “You were in danger, and you thought I was too. It’s-“_

_“But I needed the information he had!” she sobs. “I had a mission and I_ failed, _Aang. I failed because I didn’t think things through and…oh, Aang, I’m so_ sorry, _I-“_

_“Hey, hey, no,” he says soothingly. “You didn’t fail, Hina. Didn’t you say that the man you were going after was the only reason that warlord is still in power?”_

_“You remembered,” she says, winding her arms tight around his neck._

_“Of course I remembered, Hina, love.” He lets his chin drop back to the top of her head. “Without this guy, the house of Cai is going to collapse. Maybe you could’ve gotten at organized crime if you’d had his intel, sure, but that’s one huge threat that no one has to face anymore because of you. You didn’t fail. You didn’t fail the mission and you didn’t fail me.”_

_“You’re not upset that I killed someone?”_

_“I understand, Hina,” he sighs. “I don’t like it, but I’d do anything for you, and I can’t imagine I’d have done any differently.”_

_“That’s a lie and you know it.”_

_“Well, I’d still do anything for you.” He kisses her hairline. “You’d kill for me, I’d die for you. It’s how we work.”_

_“I love you,” she chokes out suddenly after a pause. “I love you so, so much and I couldn’t…I can’t…”_

_“You don’t have to, Hina.”_

_Her face is unreadable but he gets a good sense of her feelings when she kisses him through tears, weak and desperate all at once. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you.”_

_“Just don’t quit your job, okay?”_

_“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. Zuko didn’t let me.”_

* * *

**v. Present**

Yangchen couldn’t cry. She’d never been good at it, to tell the truth. She had a tough shell, a steely constitution, and an ease in ignoring her problems that was, quite frankly, astounding.

But right then she wished she could, because maybe, _maybe,_ the bitter heat of tears on her face could distract her from the boiling rage in her bones.

Rage, and so much confusion, and _heartache._

She was no stranger to confusion; Yuna was an Air Nomad through and through and Gyatso flowed effortlessly from nation to nation, identity to identity, the way their mother did, but Yangchen had never known where she fit. She was an Earthbender but didn’t feel like an Earth National; she lived in the Fire Nation but didn’t feel like she belonged there; she was more Air Nomad, by percentage, than anything else, but she couldn’t have been _less_ of one. She was the daughter of the Avatar and three-fourths of one herself; she was the daughter of the Spymistress of the Fire Nation and she’d been raised, in essence, as a member of its royal family. But nowhere did she truly feel _home._

Nowhere except Republic City and the Beifong Institute for Earthbending, six months out of every year.

In Republic City, it didn’t _matter_ where she’d come from; there were people from everywhere, people from just one place and people with heritage from multiple nations. At the Beifong Institute, it didn’t matter whose daughter she was; she was good at what she did and worked harder than anyone and _that_ was what she’d made a name for. Barely anyone recognized the name Oyama here; eyebrows were raised at her obviously Air Nomad name sometimes, but Avatar Yangchen had been venerated in the Earth Kingdom, and most people simply assumed she was Earth National. No one batted an eyelash at a single thing she did.

But the man on deck had.

_Is it true?_ She thought miserably, hugging her knees to her chest on the creaky cot. _Am I really just proof that nothing’s changed?_

_What if he’s right? What if I shouldn’t even exist?_

Yangchen knew her parents better than anyone thought they did. She saw the way they orbited around each other, heard how they always asked each other’s advice. She’d walked into their bedroom after bad dreams as a little girl to find her mother curled around her father, holding on like a pentapus. Once she’d learned seismic sensing, she’d felt their heartbeats spike and then even out whenever they were in the same room. No, there was no doubt; her parents loved each other endlessly, plainly, and unconditionally. Her parents were equals. Her parents _needed_ and _completed_ each other and yet-

_Was_ there something wrong there, something immoral in her father’s choice to love a woman whose ancestors had killed his?

Was there something wrong with _her?_

* * *

**vi. 109 AG**

_“Katara, I can’t!” Hina pants, eyes blown wide with pain and panic as she pants frantically, trying to catch a breath that won’t come. “I can’t do it, I can’t, I-“_

_“Hina, I know this isn’t ideal, but you’re going to get through it,” Katara says in what’s supposed to be a soothing tone but comes out a little bit pinched. Hina notices and lets out a cry that has more to do with the contractions than Katara’s expression but still isn’t helped by her obvious apprehension. “You are, Hina. You’re so strong, and you already know how to do this. We’re going to-“_

_“I’m not going to make it,” Hina sobs, clutching her stomach, tears welling in her eyes before she can stop them. “I can’t do it.”_

_“Hina, is something feeling off?” Katara looks genuinely worried now, pressing a wet cloth to Hina’s burning forehead. “You did great last time and-“_

_Hina cries out, cutting Katara off as another contraction grips her, and grabs her friend’s hand, hanging on for dear life. Technically, Katara is here in her official capacity as a healer and a midwife, but right now Hina needs a hand to hold and a face she can trust, and Katara – who had her own third child only two months ago – will do just fine. “I don’t want to do this without Aang,” she pants, wiping at a stray tear with her free hand._

_“Oh, Hina…” Katara’s face falls. “He…he’s…”_

_“Not going to make it in time.” Hina’s never been one to mince words, and even now, in her most vulnerable moment, she won’t sugarcoat the reality of the situation._

_  
“I’m so sorry, Hina,” Katara says. “But you can do this. I know you can.”_

_Later, Katara realizes that Aang, halfway across the world in Ba Sing Se, could’ve easily come back to the palace to learn that his wife or daughter hadn’t made it; Hina seems to know that and she’s desperate, in this moment. And that might be why Hina doesn’t look as if she believes Katara’s words; it is as if she knows something is wrong already._

_Katara knows better than anyone not to doubt maternal intuition, and it does not shock her to find that Hina’s second daughter is turned breach, nor that it is fourteen hours before she hears her daughter cry. The sheets are stained red and Hina’s face has lost all color by the end of those fourteen hours; the baby is fine, hale and healthy and as strong and resilient as one would expect of the Earthbender Katara knows she’ll be, but the Spymistress is not._

_“Yangchen,” she rasps, her voice as weak as her overtaxed body. “I’m going to call her Yangchen.”_

_“Yangchen. That’s perfect,” Katara says softly, handing the baby to a palace physician to be cleaned as she uncaps her waterskin and bends water over Hina’s abdomen, closing her eyes to concentrate on the damage within. She’s almost heartened, as dangerously weak as Hina is and as much blood as she’s lost, because if she’s giving her daughter a name…_

_  
Well, she’s not giving up._

_Hina Oyama is nothing if not a fighter. She turned her parents’ deaths into the catalyst for a fight for freedom at only thirteen, she never let her elevated position as Spymistress stop her from doing all she could in the field, she’s taken on corruption and organized crime and tirelessly worked to protect her people and her employers – no, Hina’s not about to let herself be felled by her own daughter._

_She lives, of course; she lives to swaddle a second daughter, to introduce two-year-old Yuna to her sister. She lives to light into her husband with all she has when he arrives home four days later in a panic, lives to hold the first true grudge she’s ever had against him. She’d warned him not to leave so close to her due date; he’d told her it couldn’t be avoided, and perhaps it could not, but in five years, it is his first true failing as her husband. And Hina’s devastated._

_But she lives. And she fights. And eventually, when they are woken up by her second daughter’s cries and Aang rushes to attend to her so his wife can sleep (as much as she could; she’s hypersensitive to Yangchen’s every move in a way she wasn’t to Yuna’s), she tiredly smiles and tells him that she can pardon his absence, and his face lights up like a burst of sun through the clouds._

_“Hina, love, I’m so sorry,” he murmurs, over and over again, and she believes him._

_She tells him that she named their daughter for him, too: the daughter of one Air Avatar, named for another._

_“Yangchen,” he repeats, as if for the first time, as seafoam-green eyes just like those of his beloved look up at him. She’s a little shifty for a baby, tracking his every movement; the shrewdness in her eyes reminds him so much of Hina’s that he nearly cries. “She’s just like you, Hina.”_

_Hina agrees.  
  
_

_This one put her through hell and so did he, but they are the best of her._

* * *

**vii. Present**

Usually, Toph would send one of her staff members or – if she was feeling generous – her daughters to fetch Yangchen from the docks. She very openly thought the whole thing was stupid and that Yangchen easily could have just taken a palanquin to the Institute, but Aang had insisted upon his daughter’s being safely escorted. So every year, without fail, Yangchen would be picked up and taken to the school by either a starry-eyed errand boy (the _same one_ every year, a boy her age named Rin who apparently worked as a janitor-slash-assistant-slash-doer-of-Toph’s-will) or a disgruntled Lin Beifong.

But this time it was Suyin, and Yangchen couldn’t have been more relieved.

“Chen!” Su called as soon as she caught sight of her, waving her arms. “Over-“

“I see you,” she huffed. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Of course! It’s been so long.” Everyone knew that Su was a troublemaker, but she was kind, too, and far more outgoing than her sister. Usually, Yangchen liked her. But today she wasn’t in the mood to talk, and as hard as she tried to convey that fact by staring out the window of the palanquin, it did nothing to deter Suyin. She chattered and chattered and chattered until Yangchen couldn’t take it anymore.

“Su, _please_ stop talking.”

Suyin looked hurt, but she bounced back quickly. “Tired from a long day of travel?” she asked a little bit too brightly.

“No.” Yangchen didn’t feel like elaborating.

“Did something happen?” Suyin, apparently, wasn’t giving up. “On the boat?”

Yangchen feels like elaborating now, if only to get Suyin to _stop._ “Well, a total stranger told me that my mother is a whore and that I should never have been born, so jot that down on the list of reasons why I don’t want to talk right now!”

“ _Spirits,_ Yangchen, that’s _terrible,”_ Suyin replied, her eyes widening. “I’m so sorry. People are-“

“The worst,” Yangchen said wearily. “Believe me, I know.”

“Well…” Suyin shrugged. “We’ve got some new metals in, if you need to blow off steam.” She raised her eyebrows for emphasis. “Brand-new ones. Never-before-bent.”

Yangchen’s lips quirked up in a tiny smile. “Sounds good.”

(It did nothing to stop her from lying awake that night, staring at the ceiling of her dormitory and trying not to think about the man on the boat, but in the moment, bending blades from novel metals and flinging them at the stone walls of the courtyard – unsure whether she’s picturing the face of Boat Stranger or her own doubts and questions plastered on that wall when they strike – she is a little lighter.

Earthbending is the one thing she _knows_ she can rely on.)

* * *

**viii. 118 AG**

_“I’m proud of you, Yangchen.”_

_Yangchen looks up and her eyes widen, because those words sound so foreign in her mother’s voice. That Hina loves her children has never been in doubt; but she isn’t really talkative. She’s watched Katara and her children for years, seen the way that the Fire Lady lavishes easy affection on her children, but as much as she longs for it, she’s long since accepted that she’ll never have that with her own mother._

_It’s okay, Yangchen tells herself. Her mother is Important and Smart and People Need Her. Her mother is good at her job. Her mother loves…well, every day she wants to answer that a different way:_

_Yuna more than her, because Yuna is smart like she is._

_Gyatso more than her, because Gyatso is like her father._

_  
Not enough._

_Just enough._

_More than enough._

_But today, Yangchen feels…warm. It’s the first praise she’s received from her mother in…well, ages. And she’s going to take it._

_“Thanks, Mama,” she says, her eyes sparkling with the affection she wishes would be returned more often._

_“You’re going to be a great Earthbender,” Hina continues, smile wide and giddy. It’s not an expression Yangchen is used to seeing on her mother’s face._

_“And a Metalbender!” Yangchen pipes up, because Auntie Toph said she was ‘decent for a nine-year-old’ and if Auntie Toph thinks she’s anything more than ‘substandard,’ that must be a good sign. She’d asked about Metalbending, once; Toph had smirked and said it was a ‘possibility.’_

_“That would be something,” Hina chuckles, patting her daughter’s head. “Your grandma would be proud of you.”_

_Yangchen smiles, wide and unabashed, because she knows from the way her mother polishes grandma’s fans sometimes that she was an amazing woman._

_She was also Earth National. Yangchen is proud to have gotten a part of her._

_Privately, as she gets older, Yangchen decides that that is the only part of her that makes any sense._

* * *

**ix. Present – Six Months Later**

“You’re quiet tonight,” Aang remarked, catching his daughter’s eyes across the table. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m just tired,” Yangchen fibbed. She _was,_ but…it wasn’t that.

“Are you sure, sweetie?” he raised his eyebrows. “I know what your tired looks like and it’s not this.”

“No, seriously, I’m okay,” she insisted.

“But-“

“Dad, please,” she said wearily, pushing her food around on her plate. With Yuna studying in Ba Sing Se, Hina on a job, and Gyatso…well, who-knew-where, it was just the two of them at dinner, and though her father had tried to welcome her back as warmly as he could manage, seeing him waiting for her at the docks had stirred up feelings she thought she’d bitten back long ago.

She’d had so many things to fill her head with, after all. It had been easy to convince herself that she’d forgotten the man on the boat. But she couldn’t, really – not when she saw her father, not when she looked in the mirror and an Earth National’s seafoam-green eyes clashed with a fine, stern Fire Nation nose in an Air Nomad’s round, sweet face greeted her. Yangchen was grateful, then, for the fact that she hadn’t had to face her mother or siblings yet.

It was so hard to forget when her very existence acted as a reminder of that afternoon.

“All right,” Aang sighed, acquiescing. “I know you said your training is going well, but how are _you?”_

“Fine.”

“Yangchen…”

She sighed. “I’m okay,” she said blandly. “Kinda confused, sorta awful, mostly okay.”

“Confused?” he asked. “About what, exactly?”

“I just…met someone,” she said, nearly choking on a sea prune when she realized how that sounded. “Wait, _no,_ not like that! I mean, uh. Some random stranger on the boat came up to me and started insulting our family, and he said-“

“He did _what?”_ the concern in Aang’s eyes shifted in a flash, turning to stone.

“He just…made a bunch of comments about how an Airbender shouldn’t be with a Fire National,” she said, hoping he’d be content with the distilled version and not press. “To my face.”

“I’m sorry, Yangchen,” Aang sighed. “We’ve gotten a lot of those comments since we got married. It’s…sad, but there isn’t much we can do.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Yangchen found herself blurting out. “There was more to it than that.” She swallowed hard. “Worse.”

“What?” Aang gripped the table as if he were about to upend it. “Who was this, anyway? And what-“

“Something about how I shouldn’t even exist. That I’m ‘proof that nothing has changed,’” she said, biting her lip. “He kept saying that I should never have been born-“

Aang looked stricken, and Yangchen couldn’t help but swallow hard around the lump in her throat. “Yangchen, I hope you never believed him,” he said, his eyes flashing but his voice gentle. “If anything, you’re a symbol of _peace-“_

“But that’s just _it!”_ Yangchen snapped, throwing down her napkin. “I don’t _want_ to be a symbol, and I don’t want to be an example, and I don’t want to be some… _abomination_ who shouldn’t even exist. I just want to be _me!”_

“Yangchen-“

“And I don’t even know who that is!” She was so close to crying now that she didn’t even register the feeling, foreign as it was. “Dad, I already know what you’re going to say, and I get that, I do. But what I _need_ is to know which side of myself I’m supposed to pick when I can’t be all of them and I feel like I’m not _any_ of them.” She took a breath to steady herself, for opening up was not her forte and she needed a moment to recalibrate before she pressed on. “I mean, I would’ve been mad about what that man said under _any_ circumstances, but after spending my whole _life_ not knowing who I was supposed to be, I just…I…”

They were both silent for a moment, staring at each other wordlessly.

“I didn’t know you felt that way, Yangchen,” he finally said.

“Yeah, because I’m good at hiding things,” she said bitterly, crossing her arms. “Who was going to help me – Yuna, who’s as Air Nomad as it gets? Gyatso, whose head is off in the Spirit World half the time? Mom? _You?”_ she uncrossed her arms and shrugged. “All of you have been there, and yet none of you would get it! And you know why?”

“Yangchen, that isn’t-“

“Because _all of you know exactly what you’re supposed to be.”_

“Not knowing who you need to be can be a good thing, Yangchen,” Aang told her. “I mean…I hated being the Avatar at first. Yuna’s under more pressure than I ever wanted her to be, and Gyatso is…” he shook his head. “He’s so serious I worry he’ll give himself a hernia, and I don’t even know what _for._ And your mother never got a real childhood because she was resisting a dictatorship, for Agni’s sake! But you…you’re a clean slate.”

“A clean slate, maybe, but all anyone will ever see is where I came from.”

Maybe that’s the source of her discontent, Yangchen thiought. She’d never felt purpose like her parents do; she’s never had a bond with anyone as strong as the ones Yuna had with their father and Ryuji and Katara; she’d never been committed enough to live out principles the way Gyatso did. She’d never had the seamless integration of cultures that the Prince and Princesses enjoyed, for her heritage is not a careful mix but a mashup of anything and everything.

She was an Earthbender, but mostly, she was a wanderer.

“You can never change how the world sees you, Yangchen.” Aang sighed, pressing his palm to his forehead. “I’ve learned that the hard way. Your mother has heard so many things I wish she hadn’t because she married an Air Nomad, and I…” he glanced down at his empty plate guiltily. “I couldn’t protect her. And I couldn’t protect you, but I can teach you how I dealt with it.”

“Which was…meditating?” Yangchen guesses, almost smiling. It really did seem to be her father’s answer to most things.

“No, Yangchen,” he said, smiling at her halfhearted attempt at humor. “All we can do is know our own hearts.”

“Um…”

That sounded suspiciously like introspection. Yangchen _hated_ introspection.

“Know that we mean well and do the best we can to act the part,” Aang explained. “Your mother might be part-Fire National, but I knew what she was really about, and I knew that nothing people said about her would be true. And…you can do the same. Know that you can never be enough of everything to please everyone – learned that one the hard way – and know that you’re doing the best you can.”

“I have no idea what any of that means.”

He paused for a moment, considering, before he spoke up again.

“Chart your own course, Yangchen.”

It was an idea she’d been avoiding, admittedly – forging her own path, going it alone. But…

There was something so _freeing_ in those words that she couldn’t help but smile.

“Maybe I will.”


	13. 107 AG: Honeymoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Haang honeymoon no one asked for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally just Haang fluff to decompress after the emotional gut punch that was Yangchen Alone. 
> 
> CW: off screen but heavily implied marital shenanigans.

“Where to first, little Avatar?” 

Perched atop Appa’s saddle and surrounded by luggage, Hina nudged closer to Aang, snuggling into his side for warmth. It was chilly up here, and the simple warmth of her husband’s arm around her back and his hand resting contentedly against her hip did more to cut the chill than any blanket would’ve. Not that they hadn’t thought of that, too; Hina wasn’t used to traveling on Appa just yet so she’d made sure to bring extra layers against the chill, and they rested beneath a blanket. But the sharing of body heat helped, too. 

“Anywhere you want,” Aang told her grandly, sweeping his free hand in an arc across the horizon. “We don’t even have to pick one place.”

“I kinda hate that we haven’t already planned this.” Hina pouted, partly in annoyance and partly because she knew he’d kiss the sourness off her face if she did. Sure enough, he leaned over for a peck against her pursed lips. “It’s so…not like me.” 

“You deserve a break.” Aang rested his chin atop her head. “From planning, I mean. To relax.” 

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I guess things have been hectic.” 

“You _guess?”_

“Okay, fine, they _have_ been hectic. Better?” 

“I’ve just seen how stressed you’ve been and I want to help you unwind,” Aang told her, lightly squeezing her hip with the hand that rested there. A chill that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature ran up her spine at the contact. “This week is about you, short stuff.”

“No, it’s about _us.”_ She smiled now, turning to wrap both her arms around him. Aang responded in kind, shifting his hold on her to mimic the position. “I want to know what you want to do, too.”

“All I want to do is make my wife happy,” Aang said, his arms tightening around her. “Would you tell me how?” 

“Hm...you could take me to Ba Sing Se.” 

“Ba Sing Se?” Aang sounded confused. “I mean, of course, but why?” 

“There’s...ugh, you’re going to think it’s so stupid.” She flushed, looking down at her lap. 

“Of course I won’t, Hina.” 

“There’s a traveling exhibit at the university museum in Ba Sing Se,” Hina admitted sheepishly. “The Northern Water Tribe Mummies are on display right now. You know anything about them?”

“Um...no?” 

“They’re _amazing,_ Aang.” Hina felt flushed with excitement instead of nervousness now. “A few years back, a Northern Water Tribe hunting party got lost in the mountains and found these bodies frozen in the foothills. They were so well preserved that they still have all their hair and everything - no one had ever seen anything like it. No one knew how old they were or where they’d come from. They got moved to a museum, but no one knew where to start.” Hina glanced up at Aang to see if he was listening to find him looking skeptical but undeniably interested. “They had to bring in a bunch of waterbenders and develop new waterbending forms to figure out how old they were. Took a while - I was, like, fourteen when they were discovered, and they just figured it out last year. But they managed to date them, and - get this -“ Hina’s eyes shown with excitement - “they’d been up in those hills for _nine hundred years!”_

“So...you want to spend our honeymoon looking at nine-hundred-year-old corpses?” 

Hina lightly elbowed Aang’s side. “I am a _nerd,_ Aang. You knew that when you married me.” 

“I did.” He skimmed his hands over her arms and stopped at her hands, intertwining them in his. “And I love that about you.” 

She tilted her head up to look at him. “So you’ll take me to see the mummies?”

“Of course, darling.” 

“Mm, thank you!” Hina sighed happily, burrowing her face into his robes. “You’re the best, little Avatar.”

“Anything for my wife,” he said, a little awestruck. “I’m never going to get sick of calling you that.” 

Hina couldn’t help but kiss him for that, and she found, to her delight, that in kissing him, she forgot to be cold. 

* * *

**Day 1: Ba Sing Se**

“Aang, _look_ at this.” 

If Hina were any closer to the glass display case, her face would be pressed up against it. Her hands already were; it was such an odd sight, seeing Hina so enraptured, but Aang wasn’t sure when he’d last seen something as beautiful as his wife’s childlike awe. 

(Even if the mummies themselves made him want to run screaming; he was, valiantly, doing his best not to look at them.) 

“I am,” he replied, stepping closer so he could rest his hand at the small of her back. She didn’t stiffen or pull away and a little heat bloomed in his chest at the trust she’d placed in him, now - it had taken months to get there. “They’re...um...very dead.” 

“Aang…” Hina tried to bite back a giggle but couldn’t. “You are such a dork.” 

“They’re _mummies,_ Hina! What am I supposed to say? ‘She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen’?” 

“All three mummies are men, Aang.” 

“Oh.” He winced. “Um. In all honesty, I’d rather watch you look at them than actually...you know…”

“Oh.” Hina sounded a little bit hurt but she knew where he was coming from. “I think they’re amazing, but I can see how they’d have a certain...lack of appeal to some.” 

“They’re not my favorite,” Aang admitted. “But you’re happy, aren’t you?” 

“In nerd paradise,” she reassured him. “But I also know that I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes.” 

“Thirty, actually.” 

“So if you want to head out…” 

“ _Please._ These things are terrifying to look at.” 

“You could’ve told me that, darling,” Hina said, turning and looping her arm through Aang’s as they walked out. 

“And miss that look on your face? Please.” 

“You flatter me, Avatar,” Hina sighed, rising on her toes and craning her neck to kiss his cheek. 

“No, I just love you a lot.” 

* * *

**Day 3: Sulfur Springs**

They’d wound up in the Fire Nation again, after all. 

They’d talked about Omashu after another night in Ba Sing Se, but had decided it was a little too unromantic for a honeymoon (as if mummies were any better); their honeymoon had been a delight but there’d been little to it by way of romance yet, and so they’d chosen this place. They’d thought about visiting Ember Island but decided against it; Sulfur Springs, the royal family’s _other_ retreat, had been a much more appealing destination. 

The place was laid out like a resort even though it had only been built for one family and a few guesrs, and steam rose all around the guesthouses. Hot springs abounded in this region, and here they were given center stage: some were left as they were for bathing, others filled the guesthouses’ bathtubs in an ingenious feat of engineering. No expense had been spared in making the place comfortable, clearly meant to lull visitors into relaxation (probably, Hina figured, for political purposes) with its plush beds, expansive bathtubs, hardwood floors, and the jasmine-scented air that wafted in through the open, slatted windows. 

“It’s beautiful,” Hina murmured when they’d set their luggage down, opening the shutters to get a better look at the lush landscape outside. The sun had only just sank below the horizon and night hadn’t fallen just yet, though the twilight was rapidly darkening. 

“It is,” Aang agreed. 

_But not as beautiful as you,_ she wished he would add. Briefly, she wondered when she’d become such a sap. “I’m not overly fond of the idea of bathing in the outdoor springs at night,” she said instead. “Maybe we should leave the outside things for tomorrow.” 

“I like inside things,” Aang said with a sincere smile. 

“Um.” Hina’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I’m...I’m kind of a mess. Can I maybe, um...clean up first?” 

“Yeah, go ahead. Actually…” he glanced up at her, waiting her to look up from the bag she was rummaging through. “I could use a bath, too. Mind if I join you?” 

“I, uh…” Hina couldn’t even look at Aang, her face hot in spite of her every effort to fight it back. “I’d actually rather, um...be by myself?” 

“Oh, uh...that’s okay.” He approached and knelt beside her. “Is this the thing we talked about?” 

Hina bit her lip and nodded. She’d told him about this the night they’d married - her shyness, how apprehensive she still felt. She’d thought that the conversation would make it all seem less daunting. 

But it hadn’t. And here she was, on her honeymoon, embarrassed and awkward as ever. 

“It’s okay, darling,” Aang reassured her. “Just let me know.” 

“I will,” she said, absentmindedly grabbing the first item of clothing her hands landed on. “Um. Well...I’ll be back in a few.” 

She tried not to look back as she made her way to the bathtub, tried not to let frustrated tears slip down her cheeks when she’d locked the door and turned the knob to let the tub fill. She hated feeling like this - hated knowing that she wanted her husband and was too embarrassed by the idea of intimacy to say so. She hated being in this bathtub that she could’ve fit the population of a small town in all alone when she could’ve been with him. She hated her shame and she hated her apprehension and yet…

It was all so _new._ She couldn’t bring herself not to be afraid. 

She didn’t linger in the bath, stepping out to dry herself as soon as she felt clean. She wound her hair atop her hair, too lazy to towel-dry it, and slipped on the robe she’d brought-

_Oh._

Hina hadn’t been looking when she’d chosen her clothes, and she sighed when she realized she’d taken one of the many, _many_ pieces of ridiculous, frilly sleepwear that Katara had foisted on her before the wedding. None of them were as skimpy as she’d expected; they were luxurious, beautiful, alluring but not necessarily provocative - Katara had probably known she’d hate it and stuck to things that, at very least, were comfortable to wear, if impractical. 

This robe - sheer and seafoam-green, in an airy material that ripped around her knees like a light breeze and matched her eyes - was one she’d deemed agreeable enough to pack, but she had still not thought she’d wear it. 

Now she’d all but forced herself to. 

Hina shrugged the robe over her shoulders and couldn’t help but observe that its silky fabric felt wonderful against her skin. That, at least, provided a distraction from her frustration and anxiety-

“Hina,” Aang breathed the moment she stepped past the door and into the bedroom. 

“Um...yes?” 

He rose to his feet, as if her entrance warranted it, but he didn’t come any closer. _He’s waiting for me to make the call,_ Hina realized. 

“It’s just...that robe...I’ve never seen it.” His eyes widened appreciatively. “It’s nice.” 

“Oh, this?” She swished the fabric between two fingers. “Totally impractical, right?” 

“Beautiful,” he murmured, still not moving from the bedside, and that was enough for Hina. She cleared the distance between them in only a few strides and threw her arms around his neck. It felt so childish, merely hugging him when they were _here_ and she was wearing _this,_ but it felt right, showing him without words that it wasn’t because of any lack of love that she’d been so reluctant to get too close.

“I’m sorry, Aang,” she murmured. “I’m sorry that I’m being so stupid about this-“

“Hina, love, you’re not being stupid.” He ducked his fingers under her chin, lifting it until she was looking at him. “This is new to both of us. It’s natural that you’re a little nervous.” 

“But you’re not,” she said, her voice small.

“I don’t mind, Hina. Really, I don’t.” 

“I know you don’t, but it’s just...frustrating because I _do_ want you.” Her heart kicked joyfully at her ribcage in spite of her anxiety, and she splayed her palm against his chest. “I really do. And the, um, the other times...I, um. You know. It’s...nice. Don’t get me wrong, Aang, I want you-“

“Hina, can I kiss you?” 

“Yes,” she breathed, letting the moment get the better of her. _I want this. I want you. I want you more than I want to protect myself._ “Please, Aang.” 

He obliged, and it was nearly impossible to think of anything at all when he kissed her this way - not as he usually did, sweet and reverent, but... _hungry._ As if he’d catch on fire if he didn’t. It was dizzying and by the time they parted she was panting and smiling and flushed with a kind of happiness she wouldn’t have thought possible even five minutes ago. Aang simply stared, watching her flushed face and the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders, before he leaned forwards again and pressed a kiss to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, carefully, meticulously trailing down her shoulder and up her throat- 

“What brought this on?” she asked, though she knew the answer, because more than she’d ever wanted anything, she wanted to hear him say it. 

But he _didn’t_ say it. 

He stared again and then, cupping her face in his hands, responded. 

“You’re a beautiful woman, Hina,” he whispered. 

This time, when he leaned in, she met him halfway. 

* * *

**Day 7**

She’d woken before Aang on the last morning of the trip. 

For a while she’d just looked at him, watching his unchanging expression with fondness she couldn’t have imagined possessing before him. Then Hina’s hands had begun, almost of their own accord, to trace the arrows down his arms, fingertips skimming the line where blue faded to tan. But that hadn’t felt like enough, after a while, and now she was curled around him, her stomach pushed flush against his back and her arms wrapped protectively around his waist. She’d nearly nodded off again, so sweet was the feeling of his warmth and the comfort of having someone to hold; but he’d stirred in her arms, and that had been that.

“G’morning, Hina,” he mumbled sleepily, his hands reaching for hers where they were clasped across his chest. 

“I love you,” she replied, even though ‘good morning’ would’ve made more sense, because suddenly she felt almost overwhelmed with the need to tell him, the need to know that he knew. The apprehension of the earlier week was not gone but in this moment, nothing could seem further from relevant. 

Aang turned to face her, his face lit with the soft glow of contentment. “I love you, too,” he replied, threading one hand through her loose, matted hair. 

She placed her hand against his chest (for that was how she’d now begun to tell him that she was his now, and he hers), and pulled him in closer to kiss him awake. 

And here, nothing but a robe of sheer green silk between them, Hina had never been more certain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re a beautiful woman, Hina.” 
> 
> *dies*


	14. 124 AG: Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko + important talks with each of his children.*
> 
> *Except Izumi because it was late and I got lazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hands in the air if you're soft for Dadko!

**Sana, 13**

"Sana?" 

Zuko's immediately on alert at the sound of muffled crying when he knocks on his youngest daughter's bedroom door. (Well, not _hers -_ it's also Sakari's, but Sakari is off Agni-knows-where right now.) 

"Go away!" Sana calls from inside, and the sentence is punctuated by a sniffle on one end and a shaky hiccup on the other. That's the last straw, and Zuko opens her door. It's within his Dad Rights, he figures, to do that when his youngest is crying in her room for no apparent reason. 

"Sana, why are you crying?" he asks, approaching her bedside. She's curled up against the pillows with her face buried in a stuffed sky bison, wailing. He tries to rub her shoulder but she sits bolt upright, snarling. 

"Don't _touch_ me!" 

"Sana, what _happened?"_

"You tell _me,"_ she sobs, collapsing back against the pillows. Normally he'd be more worried about this, but he knows that Sana got every single one of his dramatic genes and then some. She means almost nothing she says in the heat of emotion. 

"Um, I'm really not sure what you mean by that," he says, trying again and relaxing once he realizes that she's letting him touch her now, despite her previous opposition. "Did something happen?" 

"Yeah, _I_ did," she spits. "By _accident."_

"I'm sorry, what?" 

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?" Sana cries, a fresh round of sobs shaking her bony shoulders. "Why didn't you _tell_ me that I was an accident?" 

Zuko has to take a moment to process that, but he's seeing red as soon as he does. "Who told you that?" he says, his voice icy. 

"Kya," Sana spits. "The only one in this family who's _honest_ with me." 

Zuko's fist clenches. Of _course_ she had. "Kya's wrong," he says as evenly as he can manage. 

"You mean you _planned_ on having five kids?" Sana hiccups, sitting up again. "That sounds fake." 

"Well, no, but that _doesn't_ mean you were unwanted, Sana." He pulls her into his arms and pauses, briefly, to relish the fact that she still lets him - none of his other children much like affection anymore. "We love you-" 

"But I was a _mistake."_

"No, you _weren't."_ If he's being generous, he would like to send Kya to reform school for this; if he's not he straight-up wants to throttle her, because Sana is anything but. She's sweet and sensitive and outgoing and dramatic (in the extreme; she gets it from both parents) and so much like Katara that he has to blink a few times some days just to make sure he's talking to his daughter and not a younger version of his wife, and though, admittedly, she hadn't exactly been planned, he can't imagine their family without her. "Just because you were an, um... _surprise..._ that doesn't mean we don't love you. That we aren't glad we ended up with five kids instead of four." 

"Are you sure about that?" she raises her eyebrows, and the mannerism is so purely _Katara_ that he has to laugh. 

"I am." He kisses the crown of her head. "Now, if you don't mind me, I'm off to have a word with your sister about this."

Sana doesn't look convinced, but then, he didn't expect her to. He's learned that over the years: he can't expect his children to believe him. All he can do is tell them what they need to hear and pray it sinks in. 

* * *

**Kya, 17**

"I can't _believe_ you would say something like that to your own _sister-"_

"Dad, it's _true."_

_"But why would you tell her?"_

Kya shrugs. "I mean, why not? She’s easy to mess with." 

" _Kya!_ Sana's _crying_ because of what you said!" 

"Um...sorry?" she does, at least, look a little guilty about that. "But, I mean...I don't know why it's such a big thing. She _was_ unplanned."

"Yeah, but when you said 'unplanned,' she heard 'unwanted.'" Zuko glares at his daughter. "Do you have any idea how it feels to grow up thinking your parents didn't want you, Kya?" 

_I do._

"Um..." now she looks truly remorseful. _Good._

"You don't and you won't." It feels important to affirm that, to tell her she'll always have her parents' love. "But neither should Sana."

"But I never said-"

"That's how she took it, Kya." Zuko rubs his temple tiredly. "Don't ever pull a stunt like that again, you hear me?" 

"Okay. Sorry. It was a joke." Kya looks duly chastised, staring at her lap. She pauses for a moment but apparently she's not done speaking yet. "And Dad?"

"Yes, Kya?" 

When she raises her eyes to meet his, they're as pained as he's ever seen them. "I know you think there's something wrong with me." 

"Kya, _no,_ we-"

"I know you think I'm exactly like Aunt Azula." 

"Kya, I never-"

"And you wonder why I can't just behave like Zumi does." 

"No, I don't."

"And I'm _sorry,_ Dad, but if I was like her, no one would even know that I existed!" Kya throws up her hands. "I know you wish I'd be like her, but I'm already invisible as is, and if I was just another ready-made heir-" 

"Kya, you're _not_ invisible." 

"But that's just it. I _am."_ She pinches the bridge of her nose. "I’m the backup. Leftovers. Extra. I serve absolutely _no_ purpose, and if I didn’t make a mess out of everything, no one would bother to remember that I even existed!”

“And so you inflicted that on your sister…?”

“No, of course I didn’t!” Kya huffs, burying her face in her hands. “Look, she’s annoying, but I love Sana. I love _all_ of them. The accident thing was honestly just a joke, and yeah, it was dumb, but I didn’t _mean_ anything by it. It’s not that deep! I was messing with her-“

“That’s still unacceptable, Kya.” Now, though, Zuko feels a twinge of guilt for not realizing that Kya had such an obvious reason to act out. “But you’re _not_ invisible. For Agni’s sake, you’re a master waterbender, and a _princess-“_

“And the second daughter of parents whose first daughter is the only one that matters.”

“Kya…”

“You can’t say it’s not true, Dad.” Kya’s lip quivers. “You and Mom might love me, but that doesn’t mean I have an actual _purpose.”_ She bites her lip in an attempt to still it. “I’m _useless.”_

“You’re _not_ useless, Kya. You’ve never been-“

“Thanks, but no.” Kya seals her lips in a tight line, tears collecting above her eyelids.

He leaves, because he understands an “I need space” face when he sees one, but he hates every word he can’t find and every step that takes him further away from her.

* * *

**Sakari, 14**

“Morning, Saki.”

“Hi, Dad.” Sakari shoves the last bite of a moon peach bun into her mouth with a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Where is everyone? Still asleep?” the breakfast table is conspicuously empty.

“Sparring,” Sakari huffs.

“This early?”

“Yeah.” Sakari takes a sip of mango juice, looking morose. “Izumi said they needed to go before it got hot.”

“And they’re _all_ there?”

“Except Yuna and Ryuji. They’re at the Archivist’s office.” She rolls her eyes. “Not sure what they’re doing, but…nerd things.”

“Must be about the new shipment of documents we got in last night,” Zuko figures. “Apparently the Archivist got some rare scrolls on the Air Nomads. Yuna hasn’t stopped talking about it for weeks-“

“And neither has Ryuji.” Sakari shakes her head. “They’re so _obvious.”_

“Obvious how?”

“Obviously in love.” Sakari crosses her arms peevishly. “It sucks. They’re the only ones who never want to spar, and I don’t want to be their third wheel while they make eyes at old books.”

“Don’t you have homework?” Zuko asks lightly. “Your writing tutor told me-“

“Of course I have homework. We _all_ have homework,” Sakari sighs. “That doesn’t mean they’re not going to have fun without me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Zuko wishes he had an easy solution to her predicament, but he doesn’t. Sakari tries to make the best of her lack of bending – she’s taken to the sword with a zeal that surprised even her uncle Sokka, and she wants to learn chi-blocking (which her parents will _absolutely not allow,_ no matter what Ty Lee says, until they know she won’t use it on her sisters) – but sometimes…

Well, sometimes it’s harder than others.

“You could help me with paperwork,” Zuko suggests, even though he knows she’d hate the job, because it’s important to him that she knows he cares enough to try.

Sure enough, she scrunches up her nose. “No thanks.”

“Well, um…I hope you find something to do.” And then, because he’s earned the right after parenting this child for fourteen years, he adds, “and I hope that thing is your homework.”

“ _Dad.”_

“Hey, I had to.” As he stands to leave, he leans to kiss Sakari’s forehead. “Love you, Saki.”

“Love you too,” she grumbles, decidedly _not_ feeling affectionate.

He still has to smile, though.

* * *

**Ryuji, 16**

“Hey, Dad?”

Zuko’s just poked his head in the door to check on Ryuji, who seems to be asleep, but he apparently isn’t. He turns. “Yes?”

“Can I, um…can I ask you something?”

He approaches again, taking a seat in the armchair next to Ryuji’s bed. “Of course, Ryu.”

“Okay. Um.” He sits up and even in the dim candlelight, Zuko can tell that his son is flustered. “So, I, uh…” he trails off awkwardly. “Um, I…”

“You…”

“Ilikeagirl,” he blurts out, half-choked.

“Oh?” Zuko’s lips quirk into a smile. “Tell me about her.”

He declines to do so, instead skipping to the question. “I don’t know what to do. What are you supposed to _do_ when you like someone?”

Zuko thinks back over the girls he’d liked as a teenager and shakes his head, because there’s no one _less_ qualified to talk about this than he is, but he forges ahead for Ryuji’s sake. “Um, well. You can get one of your sisters to force you into an awkward situation together-“

“No!”

“Understandable,” Zuko sighs. “Um. Or…you could have a near-death experience, tell her how feel, and then get rejected, only to be poisoned and then-“

“Is this about you and Mom?” Ryuji asks. “Seriously?”

“Well, what else do I have to base this off of?” Zuko shrugs helplessly.

“I’d prefer not to get rejected five times before-“

“Hey, it was _worth it!”_

“Um. _Rejected. Five times.”_

“Well, uh, I don’t really know, but…you should tell her how you feel.” That, at least, he feels confident enough to say with certainty. “You never know when you’ll run out of chances.”

“Why so morbid?” Ryuji looks personally affronted at the suggestion.

“No, not like _that!”_ Zuko rushes to explain. “She could find someone else, or lose interest, or-“

“So basically you’re saying I have to tell her yesterday or it’ll never happen?”

“No, but-“

“Dad. None of this is actually helping me.”

“It’s hard to do this when I have nothing to work with, Ryuji!” Zuko protests. “Can’t you just tell me what this girl is like?”

(This, he’ll admit privately, is as much about his own curiosity as anything, but he’s not going to tell Ryuji that.)

“Um. She’s really smart,” he begins tentatively. “She’s…sweet, and understanding. And I know her really well, and she’s pretty, and-“

“This is Yuna, isn’t it.”

“What? _No!”_

“Nope, definitely Yuna.” Zuko grins, a little too pleased that he’s figured it out. “Aww. Falling for your best friend…that’s sweet.”

“ _Dad!”_

“Well, with Yuna, you already have that bond, right? So you’re a little bit safer.” Zuko pauses to consider. “Especially because I’ve never even seen Yuna _talk_ to another boy your age.”

“So…?”

“So it _is_ Yuna!”

“What were you saying?” Ryuji asks, impatient to move the conversation in a safer direction.

“I don’t think you need to worry about moving too slowly with her. She’d probably freak out if you pulled anything sudden anyway.” Zuko shrugs. “Just…wait for the right moment, and in the meantime…um…”

“If you’re going to tell me to ‘be myself’-“

“No, I was _going_ to say ‘make her feel special.’”

“Make her feel special…hm. I can do that.”

“And Ryuji?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’ve got a good shot.”

“Uh…thanks.” He pauses. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Of course not, Ryu. If your sisters found out, the entire country would know within days.”

“Which is what I’m trying to avoid here, so _please-“_

“Of course, Ryu.”

Zuko closes the door as softly as he can when he leaves, smiling to himself, and he almost jumps out of his skin when he feels cool hands wrap around his waist from behind. He relaxes, though, when a familiar weight settles on his shoulder – only one person rests her chin on his shoulder that way.

“How much of that did you hear?” he asks, turning to face Katara.

“All of it.” She smiles, rising on her toes for a brief kiss. “So our baby has a crush, huh?”

He smiles, wrapping his arms around her shoulders to pull her in closer. “He does. Crazy to think about, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” Katara says. “I’ve known about this for months.”

“ _Months?”_

“Please, Zuko, they’re not exactly subtle.” She reaches up to pull the topknot from Zuko’s hair, letting it loose so she can ruffle it. “Yuna looks at Ryuji the way she looks at books.”

“That bad, huh?”

“You are so dense, husband,” Katara teases. “Dense then, dense now.”

“Wh-“

“Please. You didn’t even think ‘careful, sailor’ was flirting-“

“Hey, you said you were playing a part!”

“You totally wouldn’t have gotten it anyways!” she shoots back, grabbing his wrist and pulling him down the hall so that Ryuji won’t hear them discussing his love life. They don’t get very far, though, before a rush of affection overcomes Zuko and he’s kissing Katara as if his life depends on it.

“No, but I’ve improved,” he teases in between kisses. “Have I not?”

“Oh, across the board.” Katara smirks, knotting her hands in his hair. “But you’re still pretty dense.”

“Hey, at least I don’t write you melodramatic letters that I don’t send about how I’m ‘burning with passion’ anymore,” he protests weakly, but any conviction he has dies a very hasty death when he sees the way he’s looking at him.

Suddenly he’s twenty again, and suddenly his heart rests entirely in her hands.

(It always does but here, in this moment, he can’t help but be reminded.)

“No, you just tell me,” she says, giggling as he lifts her (albeit with a little more effort, sadly, than it took when he was twenty-two and a starry-eyed newlywed), sweeping her up bridal-style and pressing her against his chest. Katara reaches up to cup his cheek. “Although you don’t really need to.”

“Hm. I’ll keep that in mind.” He leans into her touch as he walks, secretly thrilled that she hasn’t demanded to be set down yet (she hates to be carried), and he’s still grinning when he sets her down at the door to their chambers.

“Oh, and Zuko?”

“Yes, my love?”

“As a former teenage girl who loved a Fire Nation prince…” she grins slyly. “That wasn’t bad advice back there.”

“…you’re telling me I _didn’t_ have to get my heart broken twice?”

“No, I’m telling you that Ryuji won’t.”

“Yeah, because Yuna is _nicer_ than you were.”

“No, because Yuna has fewer hangups and commitment issues than I do. Don’t get it twisted.”

“Darling, I just had to check on five children. That seems _at least_ decently committed to me.”

She throws a pillow at him.


	15. 126 AG: Rarest and Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crown Princess Izumi isn't supposed to fall in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend Zayna, who has MANY lovely Haang HCs (she's the one who inspired Yangchen Alone - two of the Hina flashbacks were based on her prompts), wanted me to write about Izumi, so here we go. 
> 
> IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE.

_A princess shirks duty not. A princess thinks not of herself. A princess belongs to her people; she belongs no more to her own heart-_

Izumi shifts uncomfortably against the satin of her sheets, but nothing she tries lets the heat of the night escape. The mattress feels too stiff, the air too hot, the bedcovers too stifling, her mind too anxious to allow sleep, even though she knows she must. Without trying to, without wanting to, her mind takes her back to the earlier hours of the evening, and even as her tutor's aphorisms bounce like stray dandelions through her mind, she no longer has the strength to resist the call of memory. 

* * *

"I don't like that one." 

Kya, looking as regally haughty as anyone would expect in what looks like a Water Tribe gown in a Fire Nation cut (Izumi wished she'd been able to get away with that), didn’t seem pleased with Izumi's choice of dance partners. With as much dignity as she could muster, Izumi jabbed her elbow into her sister's side. They'd gotten good at that over the years - silently paying back slights in company they couldn’t afford to offend - and Kya let out no more than a dirty look. 

"I didn't like him, either," Izumi admitted after a moment. She hadn't; Kya had been right about that much. The man had been positively insufferable, a fantastically wealthy spice merchant who'd seen fit to speak to Izumi as if she were stupid one moment and launch into lengthy, overly-technical spiels about the ins and outs of his business (Izumi was almost proud to have been able to keep up, given how dim he'd expected her to be) the next. Sure, he'd been handsome...enough, in his oily, overdone way. But privately, as she pasted on a cordial smile and danced with him, she'd thought he was the sort of man she'd rather stab her own eyes out than marry. 

That, unfortunately, had been a fitting description of most of her dance partners tonight. Though this particular ball was being thrown in honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the end of the war and had nothing at all to do with Izumi, she'd been unambiguously told that she was to spend this night looking for the husband her father's council thought she should already have. She'd suffered through countless dances with men she couldn't stand - this one too cocky, that one too spineless, this one too stupid, this one too condescending - but what was she to do about it?

_A princess shirks duty not. A princess thinks not of herself. A princess belongs to her people; she belongs no more to her own heart-_

Izumi would be Fire Lord one day; that alone was not a thing she resented. She loved her country, and as she's watched her parents lead it all her life, she'd been anxious to give it the best of herself when the time came. She could not give her best to a country and to a husband; her marriage - and one was expected - would be one of duty. She would take a husband whose company she could tolerate, one who would help her lead and whose counsel she would trust but whose heart she would not own and who did not expect her love; she would do what she must to bear the heir her country needed and no more. 

It was a death knell rung the moment she was born: Princess Izumi would not fall in love. 

Love seemed irrelevant, anyway. She had parents who loved her more than should be possible, four true siblings and three honorary ones whom she loved with everything she was. She had her maid, Rika, who'd been a guide and companion since childhood; she had Master Ko, who taught her all she knew about Firebending, and Master Lai, a kindly old diplomat who taught her to read and write and add as a child and later to navigate the narrowest of political straits. She had Avatar Aang and Spymistress Oyama, who would always be her staunch allies and trusted friends. That seemed like love enough. 

But sometimes it hurt, still, that she wouldn’t know tenderness. The only kisses she would ever know would be the one that marked her union, and, perhaps if she were lucky, the ones she'd be given when she had to bow to duty and produce an heir. She wouldn’t be kissed or touched or held for the joy of it, not once. Izumi might as well have deigned tl marry an advisor, for all that her husband was going to mean to her. 

"Well, he isn't your last resort," Kya said beside her, jarring Izumi from her thoughts. "There's more out there, right?" 

"It isn't as if I'm going to have much better luck with-" 

"Your Highness?" 

Both princesses looked up at the sound of an unfamiliar voice, smooth and modulated but a little shaky with nerves. "Yes?" they reply at the same time.

They turned, and the man standing before them was flushed with embarrassment. "My apologies, Your Highnesses," he said hastily, blinking wide golden eyes nervously. "I...I meant to address Princess Izumi."

"She's all yours, then." Kya threw a barely-concealed wink back at her sister and sauntered off, evidently pleased. That left Izumi alone with the man, who looked like he might faint with nerves at any moment; she couldn’t help but smile, her heart warming at the sweetness of his shy, awkward greeting. He was still bowing. 

"Please," she exhorted. "Get up. You look like you might faint." 

Normally, those words from a Crown Princess would be cause for terror, but Izumi had taken a page from her parents' book in the good-natured, amicable relations she tried to maintain in formal interactions. There was no reason to be stiff and her tone was light, welcoming; relief flooded the man's features.

(They were very handsome features, Izumi noted - golden eyes, high cheekbones and long, aristocratic nose. He was as lovely to look at as he was sweetly awkward and she found herself uncomfortably hot for no reason at all.) 

"I...ah. I, well, you see...I..." he cleared his throat, mortified, and reached for her hands so slowly that Izumi wondered if he meant to take them at all; it was a surprisingly bold gesture, touching the princess even in the most innocent of ways, and Izumi crossed the distance, taking his warm hands in her cool ones. "I was, er...I wondered if perhaps the Princess might...might give me the honor of a dance?" 

"Yes," she exhaled, a slightly panicked giggle escaping her throat as her heart began to pound. It felt so light that she almost couldn't believe it, but it was racing, too; she wondered if the man's awkwardness was rubbing off on her. With a relieved smile like daybreak after a long night, the man took Izumi's arm and led her to the floor. 

She didn't realize until the music began that she hadn't even asked the man's name. 

"Hideo," he told her. "Hideo Matsuda." 

"Hideo," she repeated, smiling to herself. "It suits you." 

"Does it?" he smiled back at her as he released her arm, sending her skirts fanning out about her legs as she spun. She was laughing when Hideo pulled her back in and his answering smile was nothing short of radiant. 

"It does," she said with a sort of pang so strange she couldn't define it. "Matsuda..." she wracked her brain for the man's connection, knowing he had to have one. "Oh! Your father is the governor of the Yuanzhou Province!" 

"He is," Hideo confirmed.

"And do you wish to follow in his footsteps?" Izumi asked, genuinely curious as much as she needed the information. 

"If I may be frank, Princess..." he glanced up at her. "No, I do not." 

Izumi laughed. "I don't blame you, Hideo. Governorship is tedious."

"Says the woman who's to be Fire Lord?"

"You are not as timid as you seem." Izumi was as shocked as she was pleased; few would've dared to tease her that way, and fewer still who were as timid as Hideo. Noticing his panicked expression, she squeezed his shoulder, where her hand rested, and added, "I appreciate a sense of humor. You'd think my siblings would be enough to satisfy anyone, but...it gets boring, being talked up to all the time."

It gets lonely, she wanted to add. Why am I not lonely with you?

"It's best to have a sense of humor about things we cannot change," Hideo replied, blushing.

“I’m not exactly known for my wit, but I agree.”

“Perhaps not wit, but your cleverness is quite famous,” Hideo responded. “There’s nothing I admire more than a fine mind, my Lady.”

“Oh, really?” Izumi asked, wondering absently if the room’s temperature had increased or if she simply hadn’t noticed the heat before. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ve found that men don’t tend to appreciate women who are smarter than they are.”

“That, Princess, is because the vast majority of us are idiots.” Hideo tried not to laugh but wasn’t too successful. “I can’t say that I’m immune, myself, but I do my best.”

“I’m inclined to agree with that,” Izumi replied. “Tell me, Hideo. If you’re not going to go into the family business, what will you do?”

“Well, I, ah. Um. Well.” His former awkwardness returned in spades at the question. “When I was young, I, um. I wished to go to sea, but now I realize that I’d have been eaten alive. I, well, you see…”

“How can you be so smooth one moment and so flustered the next?” Izumi teased gently. “I can’t understand it.”

“I…I have no idea,” he admitted. “I suppose that…you made it easy to…to forget that I’m talking to a beautiful woman.” Hideo’s face was so red that she thought he might topple over at any moment. “And…and then I remembered who I was talking to and-and-“

“You think I’m beautiful?”

“I…” Hideo looked down at the floor, evidently grateful that the dance was over. “Well, of course. Anyone would.”

“I hardly think that’s the case,” Izumi said, too flustered to think of anything better to say.

“Izumi, I had to wait three hours to dance with you.” He looked up at her expectantly. “That would not have happened if-“

“I’m a princess, Hideo. Of course every man in this room wants to dance with me.” She sighed heavily and the music ended, but Hideo didn’t release her arm, for which she was grateful. “Three hours’ worth of dances was…well, torturous. Every single man I danced with wanted the title, wanted a trophy wife, wanted a pretty face…” she trailed off, reluctant to say what she could barely even wanted to admit to herself.

_None of them wanted my mind._

_  
None of them wanted my heart._

“That’s…that’s a shame,” Hideo stammered. “Your company is…is…it’s, well. I, personally…I found it delightful.”

“Your awkwardness is very endearing, Hideo.”

Izumi wasn’t sure what made her say it, or what had compelled her to be so blunt, but she wasn’t entirely displeased that she had.

  
“It is?” Hideo’s eyes widened. “My father always said that I’d never find a wife if I couldn’t speak properly.” Of course, that did nothing to calm his nerves. “N-not that I want that! I mean. Wait, this is coming out all wrong, I’m so sorry-“

Izumi laid her hand on his arm, meeting his eyes with a warm smile. “It’s all right, Hideo. I understand.”

“You…do?”

“I think I do, Hideo,” Izumi said. “I…I think I do understand you.”

  
“But-“

“You’re shy, and when you break out of your shell you can be rather surprisingly smooth.” She smiled at him, wondering if he’d think this odd. “You’re self-aware enough to know that most men are idiots, but not self-aware enough to know that you are really not cut out to be a sailor. You’re funny, but you don’t realize it. You’re very sweet, and even though you’re shy, you aren’t intimidated easily. And…”

  
“And?”

“You’re really rather nice to look at.”

Izumi wanted to kick herself for that, but she also didn’t regret having said it.

“I am?”

  
Izumi laughed, and squeezed his arm. “Of course you are, Hideo. Has no one ever told you?”

“Well, yes, but…I thought they were flattering me.”

“Trust me, Hideo, they weren’t.” She almost wanted to recoil, realizing that she’d said his name in nearly every sentence she’d uttered in the past five minutes, but…it was almost addictive, saying his name. She couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  
“Um. Well, I, ah, you see…” Hideo bit his lip. “I’m. I mean, thank you.”

“Of course, Hideo.”

There it was again.

“Well, Your Highness-“

“Please, Hideo, just call me Izumi.”

“I couldn’t, Your-“

“I say you can.”

“Um. If you think it’s okay…”

“I do.”

“Then, um. Izumi, it has been a pleasure.”

“Likewise, Hideo.”

  
He started to release her arm and she thought better of it.

“Hideo?”

“Yes, Izumi?”

“Would you like to dance with me?”

“Again?” Hideo’s eyes widened. “But Princess, it’d be scandalous.”

“I’m going to be Fire Lord, Hideo. They can deal with it.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“Do you want to dance with me or not, Hideo Matsuda?”

“I do, Izumi.”

And so they did.

* * *

“Your Highness?”

  
Izumi is jolted awake by a knock at her door and sits bolt upright, tying a robe around her shift as she walks to the door. “Yes?” she calls, groggy even though she hasn’t been sleeping.

“For you, Your Highness,” a courier says, handing her a single panda lily in a tall, fluted vase with a note tied to its stem.

_A panda lily?_ Izumi’s breath catches in her throat. “Thank you,” he says hurriedly, almost too dazed to speak. These flowers are nearly impossible to find even in their native Earth Kingdom, and here…

She reads the note, wondering if it’ll give her any clue as to how this came to be in her possession.

_The rarest and best of flowers for the rarest and best of women,_ it reads. Izumi’s not sure who it’s from yet but she’s already smiling, scanning the rest of the note.

_Also, I never answered your question about what I wanted to do if I wasn’t Governor. My answer, several hours late: I wanted to be an archivist. Embarrassing, right? Anyways, sleep well, Princess. I know you probably won’t be awake when you receive this, but I couldn’t resist._

_My regards,_

_Hideo_

_  
P.S. I believe you’ll be able to tell, reading this, that I am far more composed in writing than I am out loud._

Izumi bites her lip as a smile overtakes her features and she sets the lily on her nightstand.

(She stares at it until, hours later, she nods off.)

* * *

“Pay up, Ryu.”

Kya elbows Ryuji under the table as soon as their older sister walks into the breakfast room the next morning, dark circles ringing her eyes and a panda lily tucked behind her ear, and he reluctantly hands over a few coins. Izumi, normally, would take offense at this; now she’s too dazed to even notice.

“Izumi, dear, where did you get that?” her mother asks, exchanging a look with her father that is half-shock and half-elation. Izumi doesn’t answer.

“Izumi?” her father tries. “Are you all right?”

“Huh?” Izumi snaps out of it, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and smiling when her hand brushes the flower that rests there. “Sorry, yes. I’m well.”

“I thought you weren’t going to fall in love,” Kya teases.

Izumi, usually, would glare at her sister for that, but she just shakes her head now. “Who said anything about being in love?”

“You didn’t need to,” Sana interjects.

“No, you certainly didn’t.”

Her parents exchange a Look, and Izumi takes stock of it for a moment before clarity returns and-

Oh.

_Oh._

Panda lilies…of _course_ that’s what they signify.

“I, um, I have to go,” she says, her heart pounding. “Do a…um…thing.”

“Go do your thing, then,” her mother laughs, and Izumi turns.

(She’s glad she’d had the foresight to sneak a copy of the floorplan indicating where each guest would be staying; she’s got business to attend to.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so patently unrealistic but idc I just love it sm-


End file.
